


The Bravest Thing Part 2

by livvels1012



Series: The Bravest Thing [2]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluffy, General angsty content you all know what you've signed on for by now, Graphic flashbacks of abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Maxvid shippers can scram, Medical settings, Mentions of prescription drugs, MomGwen, child abuse mention, dadvid, warnings include
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-19 17:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20661137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livvels1012/pseuds/livvels1012
Summary: Max starts on the path towards treatment for his mental health, which is starting to rapidly decline. David is faced with difficult decisions to make for Max's health and his safety, and conflicts with Aster on what the right choices are. Max's first Halloween doesn't go as planned, and we get a chance to see what Gwen has been up to while she's away from her boys.





	1. Chapter 1

“No coffee today. You can’t have any caffeine.” Vicky gently took the mug away from him and she gave him her sweetest yet most apologetic smile.   
  
Max stomped off his foot stool without a word, since she definitely wasn’t going to let him into the tea and coffee cabinet that morning. When he woke up, Aster wasn’t even in the house, which was no surprise. She had _another_ night shift, and Vicky had woken him up very early that morning. The sun was just starting to rise. Max sat down at the dining table and set his face in his hands as Vicky cooked him a small breakfast and closed his eyes for a few minutes. He had not slept well at all.   
  
His dreams were plagued with images of white coats, white rooms and the bitter taste of pills in his mouth and the sensation of trying to wake up but being unable to get your body to cooperate.   
  
“Here you go, babycakes. I know you probably don’t have an appetite but eat a little something, and we can get snacks after.” Victoria set down a bowl of oatmeal in front of him, spruced up with cream, sugar and cinnamon, berries and a pad of butter. He loved her food, and felt bad he didn’t feel particularly like having any that morning. But he stirred it and forced a spoonful into his mouth anyway to make her happy as she sat down next to him and drank her smoothie. “I’m pretty tired,” he said after a bit, rolling a blueberry around with his spoon. “So...they won’t need to give me anything, right?”   
  
“No, no, I made sure it was off the table.”   
  
Max ate a little easier after that.   
  
He was going in for something called an E.E.G test, part of the whole evaluation Aster was putting him through. After less than cooperative psychiatrist visits for assessments and a house call which didn’t pan out whatsoever, this was supposedly the last step. “What are they going to do to me?”   
  
“So melodramatic,” Vicky smile and fixed a part of his collar that was sticking up. He didn’t mind anymore. More often than not, Aster was away and he didn’t get to see David very much now that the school year was in full swing, so Vicky was all he had day in, day out. She fed him, kept him busy, put him to bed, and played records from her vast collection of vinyl when they stayed up late on the many nights he couldn’t sleep. Victoria was patience and sincerity incarnate. Everything he wanted from his mother, she gave to him, despite how much of a brat he had been to her at first. He wanted to believe that if she was in on this whole thing, it had to be good for him but he just felt like everyone was trying to fix him the fastest way possible. “They’re going to put some sticky stuff all over your head for some sensors-- ruin your beautiful curls, probably.”   
  
“I don’t care. I hate them,” he mumbled, covering his hands over his head to try to flatten his puffy locks. He just thought they made him look more awkward than he already did.   
  
“What about my curls?”   
  
He looked up at her for a moment. “That’s different.” he said lamely. Vicky was like the flowers in her store. Colorful, vibrant, thriving on sunshine and attention. He envied just how comfortable she seemed to be in her own skin. All of her confidence and eccentricity made her almost impossible not to like and he envied that quality he’d never have.   
  
“You know, nobody but my daddy ever told me I was pretty. When I was growing up, almost no one thought a scrawny dark skinned girl with hair bigger than her head was pretty. I was the only black girl in my whole school.” Victoria looked over her hands with a pondering expression, rubbing her fingers over her palms and then laying one down near his. Several shades darker than his own, but close. “That’s shitty…”   
  
“That’s how I felt. But then I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me I wasn’t allowed to love myself. I look like a gosh darn truffula tree,” she grinned at him, fluffing her hands through her big corkscrew curls before she reached over and ruffled his. “And I love it!”   
  
Max stared at her for a long time before he had an epiphany. That was why she chose flowers. They were all different, even if they were the same species, but it was the difference in their qualities that made them precious. “Or a chrysanthemum,” he suggested and he felt a little spark of joy at the way her face lit up. Maybe being nice was worth it.   
  
Or not.

  
Vicky hopped up out of her chair and he was swaddled in her arms again and he regretted it. “Nonono-- _ EUGH! _ ” he exclaimed as she planted a big kiss on his cheek. “You’re sick!”   
  
“I love you, too, babycakes. Finish your breakfast.”   
  
Vicky left him to clean up the dishes and he turned a bit in his chair so he couldn’t see him smiling as he ate.   


* * *

  
“You can bring the bear with you. If it helps you relax, that’s even better.”   
  
Max looked over at where Vicky sat in a nearby chair and she waved at him reassuringly. Max gingerly sat down on the bed provided and despite how all his instincts were telling him not to, he listened to the doctor’s instructions and laid down. There was a weird sweet, doughy smell from the sticky substance used to glue wires to his head, which was cold at first but he was slowly getting used to it. It was torture to sit still long enough to get twenty five electrodes stuck on his head.   
  
“Wh-what do I do now?” he asked, cringing at how his voice stuttered.   
  
“Just do your best to relax, even take a nap if you like. I’ll do the rest.” the doctor replied, turning down the lights. “But don’t talk to your mom.”   
  
“She’s not my...okay.” Max closed his eyes as the doctor left the room and tried to lay as still as possible. He hated this. He hated this so fucking much. That someone he didn’t know was looking at whatever was wrong with his brain on a screen, like he was just numbers and dots or whatever. Breaking him down to the bare essentials. 

He opened his eyes to look at his bear, and touched the newly repaired ear and eyes that his counselor so lovingly put back together for his sake. _We made it through the summer because of him. We can make it through this,_ Max thought as he hugged his bear tight and closed his eyes again.   
  
He must have nodded off, because he had no idea how much time had passed until the light turned on and Vicky woke him up by gently tickling his stomach, “Upsy-daisy, we’re all done.”   
  
Max sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes, feeling warm and heavy and wishing he could just conk back out. “Seriously? That’s it?”   
  
“That’s it,” she smiled, as the doctor began helping to take the electrodes off. “You did so well! And we can go anywhere you want for lunch. Do you want to get Thai food? I need need _ need _ some yellow curry.”   
  
He just wanted to leave. Max hopped off the bed as soon as he was able to and grabbed his layers, starting to bundle up for the outside. Although lunch _did_ sound good. A bubble tea would hit the spot, too. “What about the results?” he asked nervously, as they were walked out of the room by the doctor and then the rest of the way they were allowed to go on their own. Vicky tugged her long, elegant gloves on before they stepped outside and stopped to tug his scarf up over his face. “Oh, they’ll send them to us when they’re final. And when they do, I promise Aster and I will be forthright with you. Aren’t we always?”   
  
Max wasn’t used to trusting people. Taking them at their word used to be a stupid and doomed idea, but they had proven him otherwise, them and David. “What if there’s something really wrong with me, though?”   
  
“I wish you wouldn’t say it that way, Max.”   
  
“But isn’t there?” his voice shook involuntarily, as he followed her back to the car, her bright purple buggy. “Normal, healthy people don’t...hallucinate. Isn’t that what happened? Am I schizophrenic?”   
  
“When did you get your doctorate?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Well, you seem to know so much about the human psyche, I was just wondering!”   
  
“Don’t be sarcastic, Victoria, that’s my thing.” he scowled but he got her point and got into the car. As they drove to get their lunch, Max checked his phone, since they hadn’t been allowed on in the facility. He had an influx of text messages that made his heart twist with a mixture of pain and affection.   
  
_ [Nikki] ITSGONNABEGREATDONTBITEANYONEBUTDOANDTELLMEABOUTITAFTER _

_  
_And that was followed up by a bunch of wolf emojis and smiley face suns. _  
__  
__[Neil] Will you take a picture of the equipment for me if you can__  
__[Neil] It is not for experiment reasons__  
__[Neil] Also hope it goes well and you feel better dude__  
__  
__[David] Goooood mooooorning Max! Nothing to be scared of at the doctors today! The test will go fine and you’ll do great. So proud of you and all the progress you’re making! Get lots of rest after, okay? See you soon!_   
  
Max scrolled through previous conversations with his friends, anything to help ease his anxiety and ground him. He never knew when he was going to have another moment where he lost his sense of place and time, where the real was replaced by memories but he couldn’t tell they were just memories. He twisted his bracelet around his hand, wondering if his friends were wearing their own and choosing to believe they were.   
  
The psychiatrist he had talked to described them as flashbacks, and had the nerve to say they were normal for someone like him who had been through the things he had. It just made Max feel patronized. Everything that person could know about what he had been through, it was from textbooks. A stuffy therapist had no idea what he felt like. Nobody did.   
  
Max helped Vicky carry their food into the house once they were home, and noticed Aster’s car was parked outside. _Or maybe someone does,_ he thought as he trudged up the steps and into the kitchen with Foster Mom One. “Can I bring Aster some food?” he asked.  
  
“Sure. She’s probably napping upstairs, just make sure you knock.”  
  
Vicky put together a bowl and handed it to him. Max crept up to their room as quietly as he could, knowing that if Aster thought she was alone, he had a pretty good shot at catching her in the act. As he put his ear to the door, lo and behold, he did. He could hear her whispering to herself. He could only make out a few words. _“...wish you......doesn’t know...Keep them safe...do it again, can’t do--”__  
__  
_He didn’t knock. He just opened the door and looked inside, but all he heard was a rustle and he didn’t see Aster. _Weird_, he thought as he stepped in closer and glanced around.   
  
“God dammit, it’s just you.”   
  
Max nearly dropped the food and spun around, seeing the chief standing over him with a dark expression, as sinister as hell, lowering her hand from her side where he knew there was a weapon holster of some kind under her jacket. “What the fuck?!”  
  
“I’ll take that,” she just calmly plucked the bowl out of his hands, and picked up the chopsticks, as if nothing was amiss. “You’re being awfully sneaky and _rude _today, Max.”  
  
“That’s rich, coming from you.”  
  
“How did the test go?”  
  
Max shrugged and began to wander the room he normally wasn’t allowed in, at least not within reason. He could always come knocking on their door if he needed to. But he did notice something poking out from under a pillow on the bed. The pointed end of a knife sheath. And that definitely was not the side Vicky slept on. “Max?” Aster pressed. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I’m always okay,” he answered and sat down on the bed, proceeding to draw the big hunter blade from under the pillow. He could see Aster glare at him, could feel it boring into him, but he didn’t put it down. He could feel the tense energy radiating off of her as she sat down next to him. “I think we have our own definition of that word.”  
  
They sat there for a while, until she held her hand out for it and he tossed the knife to her. “Who is it you talk to, when you’re alone?” he asked, looking up at her. He almost felt worried, at the way her expression faltered, giving way momentarily to fear and uncertainty. He watched her tug a long pin out of her hair from the perfect, business like bun she always kept it in and draw it loosely over her shoulder so she could fiddle with the pin itself anxiously. He had never seen it before._ Is it made out of bone_?  
  
“I love my wife,” that was a strange way to start it. He followed her gaze to a shelf above Victoria’s desk, at a picture of what looked like their wedding day, under an archway in a garden like setting. They both had flowers in their hair, and Aster was wearing a tea-length dress with short sleeves, almost like a 50’s party dress, and Vicky’s was flowy and ethereal, with trailing sleeves, like one of those fantasy elven princesses Neriss would drone on about. They looked pretty and so _happy_. “And I love my husband. And when you love someone with your whole heart, Max, they stay a part of you even when they’ve left the mortal coil. They leave a print in the shape of them on your soul. It’s hard to let them go when you were connected like that.”  
  
Max inched away, his stomach doing a somersault as she began to pull off the glove that covered her amputated hand. He didn’t really want to see it, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Where there should have been two digits, there were barely to slightly diagonal stumps, the scars of where they were probably stitched to stop the bleeding barely visible creases. “It’s like this,” she said, wiggling the fingers that were left. “Do you know what phantom limb syndrome is?”  
  
“No,” he said, knowing his eyes were probably as wide as tea saucers.   
  
“When someone loses a leg or hand or...finger, their brain can still sense it there. I can feel my thumb bending and my finger wiggling like it’s real, like I can touch you with them but they aren’t there. Sometimes I wake up and it feels like it’s bleeding and it still hurts. Years have gone by,” her voice grew tight as she pulled the glove back on and she blinked away a wet shine in her piercing black-brown eyes. “But I still feel what they did to me. I still feel him being gone. I needed him, Max, to survive, so I...I let myself believe he was still there. And I know he’s not, I know that, but it helps to try to talk to him. It doesn’t mean I don’t love Victoria, or I’m crazy, it’s just…”  
  
“It’s like David going to talk to his mom?”  
  
He didn’t feel relieved when Aster smiled at him and nodded. “You’re a smart boy. Yes, it’s just like that. And it’s just like you.”  
  
Max began to shake his head slowly. “I don’t get it…”  
  
“When something terrible happens to you, your mind and your body do its best to get you through it. If you’re scared all the time, hurting all the time, it puts up blocks to keep you from feeling it so you can survive. And then when you come out the other side, you don’t need them anymore. But without them, you begin to feel all the things you weren’t allowed to.” she explained, pulled her feet up on the bed and sitting crisscross style, as she tossed the sheathed knife up and down in her hand.   
  
Max pulled his own feet up but hugged his knees to his chest, staring down at the knotty wood floor. He felt like he was trying to swallow a wad of cement in his throat, the harder he tried to appear as calm as she did. “I’m supposed to be happy. I’m with good people, they take good care of me, and _he _can’t hurt me again. I thought I would fucking start to be like everyone else but I just feel worse. All the time,” he hid his face in his arms from her. “I thought I’d start to be okay but...I’m not. I don’t think I’m ever going to be, Aster.”  
  
“You will be. I thought the same for so long,” she said softly, putting her arm around him. “I promise this is normal. You’re coming out of survival mode, and going into a new phase, it’s _good_. It means you’re starting on the path to getting better.”  
  
“But the flashbacks--”  
  
“Can be dealt with. They have triggers, they aren’t random, and they can be treated. All of it can be."  
  
“And then this will stop?” he asked, looking up at her. But her expression didn’t give him hope. “Aster? It’s gonna stop, right?”  
  
“I wish I had more answers. But this is something you’re going to have to ask your therapist.”  
  
“...you’re sending me to a _fucking shrink?!_” Max threw his hands back down on the bed on either side of him, not meaning to shout but he did anyway. “You just said we’re not crazy!”  
  
“And we’re not. I see a therapist, and it helps me. It could help you, and you’re going to try it.”  
  
“So I don’t have a choice?”  
  
“No, you don’t...Does it make you feel better that David picked them out?”  
  
Max opened his mouth to so _no, it fucking does not!_ but that would be a lie.   
  
“_Max, you are my whole world and I would never, ever leave you here if I thought for a second you wouldn’t be safe or couldn’t_ _be_ _happy_.”

“I’m gonna go nap. I’m fucking tired.” he said, sliding off the bed and circling away from her, never turning his back on Aster now that he knew she slept with a knife. Aster began to stand up, “I can tuck you--”  
  
“No, I’m good. Just eat your dinner and for fuck’s sake, you sleep too.”   
  
“You’ll make a great mother one day.”   
  
Max slammed the door behind him to make a point, and walked speedily to his room before Victoria could catch him and he would be asked for the millionth time if he was ‘okay’. He did take a little extra time to shower the residual adhesive out of his hair before he crashed onto his bed and fell asleep until dinner.

  


* * *

  
  
  
_ “Did you get it?” _ _   
_ _   
_ In the darkness of his room, the cold bleached light of the laptop screen was the only illumination David had. It didn’t do anything to help his tunnel vision as he read over the freshly released file. _ “Davey?” _ _   
_   
“I’m looking at it,” he answered, his voice distant. His godmother’s sounded closer than his did. “I-I only know what half of it means…”   
  
** _'After extensive evaluation, our determined diagnosis is Complex PTSD. This is commonly exhibited in children through outbursts of anger, irrational and extreme emotional responses to stressors, increased sensitivity to stress and difficulty forming and keeping relationships. _ _  
_ _  
_ _Common symptoms include reliving the traumatic events, irregular sleep patterns, panic disorders…'_ ** _   
_ _   
_ The rest just blurred and David rubbed his eyes, trying to stay awake. It had been a long day. “Are they completely sure? What--what does ‘complex’ define?”   
  
_ “It’s just about the same shit I got. But it’s different for everyone. It’s seen in cases of repeated and extended trauma, usually war veterans, victims of kidnapping or most commonly, child...childhood abuse. In Max’s case, I think the doctors understand pretty well how to help him.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “But the rest of it?” David wasn’t consoled by that fact. He didn’t know what he expected, something less serious at least, not something that would last Max’s lifetime. “It says they found ‘irregularities’ in his brain patterns corres--”   
  
_ “Corresponding with memory loss. They’re looking into it more but I talked to the doctor and she said their going theory is that it wasn’t caused by brain injury or a disorder, and it was recently developed, anywhere between the last three years. It wasn’t just the E.E.G, it was the in-person assessments, Max wasn’t able to consistently define a timeline from home and his ability to think back on it is fragmented. My guess is he’s repressing them, it’s a really common coping mechanism, especially from young ages--” _ _   
_ _   
_ “But you can’t know that.” He couldn’t sit still anymore. David got out of bed and turned on the light so he could start pacing aggressively around his room without tripping and falling on his face in the dark. “What exactly did they find in the scan?”   
  
_ “Just the side effects of the bigger issues and confirmation of the severity. All the colors on the scan formed a picture of depression, inconsistent sleep and stress, **lots** of stress...He’s a very sick little boy, David, but he’s going to be alright. He couldn’t be in better hands.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “But what do I do? What happens to him now?” That’s all he could think about anymore. Max wasn’t a baby, David didn’t have the luxury of a few years to prepare until he was grown enough for the complicated problems to start. He was jumping straight into the deep end. Sure, he knew Max better than most. They had a bond, he didn’t doubt that. But he doubted it was enough if he didn’t end up being competent enough to build from there.   
  
_ “He’s agreed to see the therapist you selected, and that’s a start. He needs to understand what he’s going through and how to handle it. But beyond that, I think it’s going to take more tests and observations. The memory loss thing has to be identified, and he might need a little extra help becoming...balanced.” _ _   
_ _   
_ David stopped pacing. He knew what that meant. “I’m not putting him on drugs, Aster.”   
  
_ “I know he’ll be opposed but--” _ _   
_ _   
_ “No! After his mother, all it’s going to do is make him feel worse and it’s not even a guarantee! Sometimes kids have bad reactions or side effects. And if it’s not effective, then the doctor says ‘try this one’ and I put him through it _ again? _ It’s not an option."   
  
_ “He’s chemically imbalanced, and that may not be fixed with therapy. If that ends up being the case, you have to talk to him and do the right thing for him, even if he doesn’t like it. One day, he’ll be grateful.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “One day he’ll be grateful?! That’s cheap. You sound just like Granda."   
  
_ “That’s parenthood, love. If the doctor suggests medicating him can help, listen to them. I take medication to manage, your friend Gwen does. You know it’s not a black-and-white thing.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “It’s different for a _ child _ ,” he insisted, but he doubted his stance. Maybe he was too biased to make the right choice. The very last thing he wanted was for Max to be reminded of the people who hurt him, traumatized him, his entire life. If David could remove any association with them and help Max separate his new life from the old, he would do it but maybe a clean break just wasn’t possible.   
  
Not maybe.   
  
It _wasn’t_. David never ‘got over’ his mother, Aster never ‘got over’ the things that happened to her, nobody ever ‘got over’ anything, it just wasn’t how people worked. However he wished and prayed and wanted, Max would always be scarred. All David could do was give him the tools to live a good life along with the scars.   
  
But he did know someone who could give him an insight on the point of view of the patient. _I need to call Gwen, a.s.a.p. _“I’d better go but...is he asleep yet?”   
  
_ “Nah, Vicky’s about to put him to bed.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “Can I say good night to him?”   
  
_ “Sure, give me a second.” _ _   
_ _   
_ He heard her call softly for Max and smiled at the grumpy _ what do you want? _ that followed half a minute later. _ “Hello?” _ _   
_   
“Hi, buddy, it’s David. How’re you doing?”   
  
_ “I’m...Hang on.” _ He heard little footsteps on a hard floor, then a door closing. _ “You and Aster were talking about me.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Uh oh, _ David thought. Max had a habit of eavesdropping. “A little bit. How much did you hear?”   
  
_ “Nothing. She doesn't call you about anything else. Was it about the tests? Do they know what’s wrong with me?” _ _   
_ _   
_ “Max, please don’t talk about yourself like that. Remember what Gwen’s been teaching you.”   
  
_ “Do they know?” _ David could hear how much his voice shook, and he wondered for a moment if Max was crying. He wished he could just have him there with him in person. This whole thing had to be terrifying for any kid, Max in particular. _ “Why all this shit is happening to me? Am I losing it? Aster says…” _ _   
_ _   
_ “Aster says what?” David felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He trusted her, but recently he questioned their differences in parenting methods.   
  
_ “This this is supposed to be fucking normal. That now that I’m away from my parents, I start feeling what they did more than ever or some-- some bullshit like that. But none of this is fucking normal, David! I see him. And I know he’s not there but at the same time I don’t and...and…” _ _   
_ _   
_ “It’s normal for you and kids like you.” he said, thinking maybe he finally perfected that calm tone of voice his mother had. “And she’s right. Max, when you were with them, you had to be strong and brave to get by, that’s who you are. You’ve always been the toughest of them all. But you don’t need to be tough anymore.”   
  
_ “I’d rather feel tough again. I feel like I’m made of glass, David, and anything is going to make me break and I’m...I’m **scared**. I just want to feel safe, why is--is that such a hard thing to get? What if they can’t help me?” _ _   
_ _   
_ “They _will_...Hey, how about this? Tomorrow when I’m off work, I’ll come pick you up. We can get dinner and I’ll take you to pick out a costume for trick-or-treating.”   
  
_ “You’re serious?” _ _   
_ _   
_ “I sure am! It’s your first Halloween here, and we’re going to make it a great one.”   
  
_ “I don’t know. Won’t there be a lot of people and kids? I don't think I'm that great in crowds lately." _ _   
_ _   
_ “But free candy,” David argued tactfully. He understood Max’s apprehension. The most he had socialized with other children had been at camp, and he had been forced into it, another situation where he had to adapt for survival. It turned out for the better, but this was different. He had to choose to do it.   
  
_ “...I get to keep all of it? No matter how much there is?” _ _   
_ _   
_ “If you do all the walking for it, you earned it. But, uh, let me check it first. For safety.”   
  
_ “Deal.” _   
  
Max was only able to stay up another twenty minutes, but David talked to him the whole time as he got ready for bed. And at Max’s requested, sang to him quietly through the phone until he nodded off and Aster took it back to let him know. But David elected for another late night, as he opened his computer again and googled “Complex PTSD” and about a hundred follow up searches.


	2. Chapter 2

It was another one of those days. Max just didn’t want to get up.   
  
He knew Vicky was worried, but she didn’t try to force him to get up. She only brought him breakfast in hopes he would eat it. When he didn’t, she took the plate back down after switching it out for another of lunch. Max only nibbled on the less than half of the sandwich given because he was starting to feel light headed and it helped to take the edge off, but then he just laid back down under the covers, burying himself under the weight of blankets and laying flat on his back to stare at the warped patterns in the wood of the ceiling. He crammed his headphones in his ears and turned up the volume to what was probably a damaging level but he didn’t care.   
  
** _   
_ ** ** _Get a load of this monster_ **

** _He doesn’t know how to communicate_ **

** _His mind is in a different place_ **

** _Will everybody please give him a little bit of space?_ **   
  
  
He felt like he was sinking deeper into the mattress and every time he closed his eyes, he half fell asleep but it was like a pseudo slumber. The more he gave into it, the more tired he felt, the more heavy and sluggish and incapable of simply sitting up and getting dressed. He didn’t sleep at all the night before. His thoughts were plagued by constant doubt and dark things.    
  
_ All I do is cry about the shit that happens to me. I never do anything about it. I didn’t stand up to Father. I didn’t talk to David and Gwen, they figured it out on their own. I’m a coward. I’m weak. Just like he says. And I always will be, and now I have the fucking brain scan and doctors note to prove it. There’s no point to me. I’m fucking broken. _ _   
_ _   
_   
** _Get a load of this trainwreck_ **

** _His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet_ **

** _But little do we know the stars welcome him with open arms…_ ** ** _   
_ ** ** _   
_ ** ** _   
_ ** He dragged his eyes open and turned his head to the side to look at his nightstand, at the framed picture of him and his two friends. He missed Nikki’s contagious smile and talks with Neil. They talked almost all the time, messaging on discord, texting, calling whenever they could. But it wasn’t the same as being there with them.    
  
Max picked up his crummy polaroid off the nightstand and held it up, staring into the dark lens and hitting the button just for the sake of it. The flash made his eyes sting but he didn’t truly feel it. He didn’t feel much at all, deaf to the whirring as the picture, no bigger than three inches long and wide, printed out and he shook it to help it develop. The poor quality of an estate sale find bled the color out of the image, making his face look ghostly and fading away. An accurate portrait of how he felt.    
  
He studied it a moment longer before tearing it in half and stuffing the pieces under his pillow, closing his eyes once more.

  
  


* * *

  
  
“You already told him?” David asked, as Vicky set down a cup of tea in front of him and two shortbread cookies. Normally Max was waiting downstairs if he knew he was coming, or at least came down, sometimes running, shortly after he walked in the door. Every time, David was so happy to see his face and to hug him in his arms again, if Max would let him. They had a record of four hugs in a row going. But he got no such joyful greeting that day. “How?”   
  
“Well, we sat down at dinner and explained things to him as best we could.” She sat down across from him with her own cup and sipped it. The counter top was still scattered with papers, the results of the many different tests from the evaluation sectioned neatly. He couldn’t stop staring at the pictures of the scan, the comparison of an average person next to Max’s. The color difference was alarmingly stark, and he didn’t know what colors defined what, but he knew it was proof. He knew how PTSD worked, that it wasn’t even categorized as a  _ mental  _ disorder but a  _ brain  _ disorder. It changed the functions of a person’s brain. Vicky must have caught him looking, because she tucked them back into the folder where he couldn’t see. “We explained his diagnosis, as generically as possible. His therapist will explain it better. I think he took it well, all things considered.”   
  
“But he’s been in his room all day.” That scared David. Max had bouts of melancholy, where he just stayed by himself or didn’t get out of bed until long into the afternoon. But he hadn’t had any since very early on in the fall, when he was adjusting to his new home. He knew that Max had to be truly disturbed by the news to fall so deep into his old problems. “Has he been eating? Sometimes he forgets to. He’ll say he isn’t hungry, but he is.”   
  
“He won’t even let Winnie in his room. I check every hour for proof of life, but he won’t even talk to me. I don’t think he’s up for going out today, David, but you’re welcome to try.”   
  
He left his cookies and tea untouched, unwilling to leave Max alone for much longer. When he got to the kid’s room, he found a very woeful Winifred with her nose against the bottom of the door as she waited so patiently and loyally. “Don’t be sad, girl, he’s okay.” David told her and patted her side but she acknowledged him only with a slight sway of her tail.    
  
David tried knocking several times but he never got an answer. Now David started to  _ really  _ worry. “Max? It’s David, can I come in? Remember we’ve got plans today.” He turned the knob and to his relief, it was unlocked. He peeked inside, but Max seemed to be in bed. All he could see was the mess of his dark hair, and the rest of him was buried under blankets, completely motionless except for subtle breathing. But he could hear muted music playing from a set of headphones, so he doubted he was actually asleep.   
  
He realized Max couldn’t hear him as he walked across the room, so he made sure to knock on the post of the bed to alert him. Max visibly jumped and turned over quickly, eyes wide and startled until he recognized him. “Hi,” David mouthed, waving at him with a smile before gesturing for Max to take his headphones out, which he did. “You’re going to hurt your hearing like that, you know.”   
  
“I don’t care.” Max muttered, slowly sitting up. 

David frowned. “Hey, you’ve still got your pajamas on.” he said, tugging on Max’s sleeve playfully but the boy just pulled away from him lethargically.    
  
“So? It’s not like I’m going anywhere today.”   
  
“...I’m taking you to get dinner and a Halloween costume. Don’t you remember?”   
  
Max rubbed the back of his neck and furrowed his brow in thought. “_Shit_. I forgot.”   
  
“It’s okay,” David didn’t mind the foul language. “We have lots of time. You’re not feeling like your best self today, huh?” he asked and Max just hunched forward silently. David knelt down next to his bed and rubbed gentle circles on his back. He knew exactly how Max was feeling, or at least something in the neighborhood of it. He had over a hundred days like this one after losing his mother, and it came into full swing in middle school. Aster got involved before it got truly out of hand, fortunately.    
  
But he never forgot the feeling. There was nothing to do but lay still waiting for nothing, acute aware of a yawning hole inside with no easy cure in sight. Like standing at the base of a very, very steep climb but having absolutely no strength left after running miles. “You don’t need to talk about it,” David said and he could see the surprise on Max’s face. “If you need to be sad, kiddo, be sad. I’ll stick with you through it. But you still need to look after yourself, so at least get dressed?”   
  
They sat in silence for a bit until Max finally nodded and began to push the blankets off. David left his side to go through his dresser, picking out clothes for him to make the task easier and set them on the bed next to Max. He left the room until the boy joined him in the hallway, looking marginally better but still crestfallen. “David, I don’t...I don’t think I can…”    
  
“We won’t sit down inside anywhere, we’ll do drive through. And I know the store will be practically deserted this late in the day.” David reassured him, “It’ll be just us, and it won’t take long and I promise you’ll feel a little better after we get back.”   
  


“Fat fucking chance.”   
  
“Hey,” David didn’t have it in him to harden his voice but he did nudge Max gently on the shoulder. “Watch your mouth, it’s going to get you in trouble one day.”   
  
Max turned around and slapped his hand away with a resounding noise, but David caught a tremor in his hands as he shoved them in his pockets shortly after.  _ I’m so sorry, kiddo. I wish I could make it all go away.  _ “Let’s get you bundled up,” he said and lead Max down the stairs, where he was allowed to help him put his coat on. There was a brief argument on the hat and gloves, but in the end David won the stare down. And as always, he helped tie Max’s scarf, getting glared at the whole time as he tucked it just so. “Got your inhaler?”   
  
“I forgot it upstairs.”   
  
David sighed and stood up. It was so  _ frustrating  _ that Max didn’t seem to take his health seriously, but patience was key. Lecturing didn’t work on him, and it especially wouldn’t now. “You have to keep it with you all the time, but I’ve got your spare, so let’s just go.”   
  
“You just have it with you?” Max asked, waving goodbye to Vicky, who was waving much more enthusiastically. David could tell how worried she was for her foster son, but he respected that she made sure to keep a lid on it. Less was more. “Of course, every time I leave the house. Gotta keep that promise, and I think it falls in the category.”   
  
Max looked at him at the mention of the promise. David wasn’t certain how to interpret his expression. Pained? Conflicted? He just smiled at him reassuringly and held the car door for him, before he got into the drivers seat and thought about where to go that would be easy and quick, but also what Max would eat. There was no pickier eater than that kid when he was in a mood. He glanced around the car for an idea, until something caught his eye. He had covered it with tape, but now over the years, it was peeling away to reveal the faded but still defined marks left by permanent ink.   
  
David hesitated, before he reached over and slowly pulled the rest of it free and dropped the scrap into the cupholder. A little strip of wood finish under the radio controls had been the perfect victim for a certain vandal he’d known years ago. Initials side by side, scrawled in expert fashion and his chicken-scratchy hesitant own next to it. 

_   
_ __   
**D.R+L.B**

**   
** **   
** _ “David, think fast!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He was used to having greasy paper bags thrown in his direction at that point and he had been ready to catch it before the warning. It crackled in his hands and he leaned back against the bumper of the car with a smile, peeking in. “Sweet potato fries? Thanks! Haven’t had these in-- wait, did you pay for these?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Maaaybe...not.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Ugh. I’m not going to keep giving you rides home if you pay me in stolen goods.” David popped one in his mouth anyway, savoring some forbidden junk food. If his coach knew, he’d tear him a new one but he didn’t care.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Yeah, you will.”  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Will I? Why is that?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Because I’m charming?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ David rolled his eyes and turned the corner of the bumper to get into the drivers seat, his passenger momentarily joining him and cramming an unapproved C.D into the player.  _ ** _Charming indeed, _ ** _ he thought in bemusement as he set the car into drive and crept out of the dark lot. In the patchy light of the street lamps, he noticed a hand offered on the center console out of the corner of his eye and his heart fluttered a little. He didn’t hesitate accepting it, as they laced their fingers together. He treasured every second of it; when they got to their destination and within the sight of others again, it was back to pretending to be  _ **** _just _ __ friends.

“I know just the place,” David said, shaking off bittersweet memories and quickly trying to press the tape over the writing again, but it wouldn’t stick, so he just got fed up and left it. Max was quiet for the whole drive, until he asked in a barely audible tone, “Can we turn the radio on?”   
  
“Sure. Requests?”   
  
“Can I look?”    
  
David handed the C.D case back to him and Max flipped through it for a while, “What’s ABBA?”   
  
“Oops. That’s a little more, uh, well aged than the stuff I’ve been giving you...It was my mom’s favorite band.” He hadn’t listened to ABBA in a while, not since doing some cringe-y not very sober karaoke a while back, memories he wished were more obscure but sadly not. “Probably not your th—”   
  
“Play it,” Max demanded and handed it back.    
  
_ Suit yourself, _ David thought as he put it in and  _ Dancing Queen _ began blaring and he felt the most intense urge to sing along he had felt in years. Borderline primal and he pressed his lips together to avoid it or smiling. Max was just staring ahead with the most horrified and disgusted face. “What. Is. This. Shit.”   
  
“Hey! Don’t talk about ABBA like that!”   
  
“Is this disco?”   
  
“Give it a chance.”   
  
“This is what the government uses to torture people.”   
  
David huffed and looked at Max for a moment, and he knew Max realized what he was going to do a second too late. Max sat up higher in his seat and shouted, _ “David, NO!”  _ _   
_   
The chorus hit right on cue and David knew what had to be done. The rest of the drive, he sang along, turning up the volume and belting out the words as best he could with a grin on his face, Max shouting and cursing at him the entire way.    
  
By the time they pulled into the dark drive through of the dingy, run down place that was somehow still open and held afloat only by famous Italian beef sandwiches,  _ Take a Chance on Me _ was going and Max had slouched all the way down in defeat, his face red with rage and second hand embarrassment.  _ “Kill me.” _ _   
_ _   
_ David laughed and turned it down so he could order their food. “Okay, okay, I’m done. Important question, regular bread or garlic bread?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Your sandwich. I recommend garlic bread, if we’re having an unhealthy dinner, we have to commit.”   
  
That was the first half of a smile he had seen from Max in a while. Five minutes later, David parked in the usual spot out back, surrounded by gravel and potholes and the lights of the drug stores, bars and shops in the area around them. He handed Max napkins and they had their quiet dinner in the car, and he could tell Max was hungry by how quickly he finished his food. Normally Max was a slow eater. “Feel better?” David asked, taking his garbage from him and then starting to drive out of the lot. Max shrugged, “Less hungry, I guess. Is this the sketchy party of town?”   
  
“Um...I try not to judge or label.”   
  
“That’s a yes,” Max snickered. “So what’s up with the tape? I saw you fucking around with it earlier.”   
  
“Language,” he said, but didn’t mean it. It was more of a roadblock than anything else. That part of his life was not Max-related or appropriate by his opinion, and he just wanted to deal with one touchy subject at a time. He knew Max was glaring at him. “I don’t like to talk about it, okay? Bad-- bad break up. That’s all. But it’s permanent marker and I can’t replace the finish because if I take this thing into a shop, I honestly think I won’t get it back.”   
  
Max’s anger dissolved a little bit and the boy shifted uncomfortably. “Oh. Sorry…Wait, is it safe for you to be driving me around in this thing?”   
  
“Of course! I fix it up myself all the time, no safer driver in this thing than me. It’s been my trusty steed since I got my license.”   
  
Max made a point of putting his seatbelt on, and didn’t say another word until they got to the Halloween store. True to David’s assumption, it was practically deserted as they walked in and he agreed to let Max have the run of the motion activated stuff. On a better day, David might have tried to enforce some better public behavior but if Max had fun, he was happy to oblige. He waited until they were at the kids costumes before he finally called, “Max, come on!”   
  
“ **Fine** ,” and moments later, his former camper was at his side. They walked the aisles of poorly made but fun looking ideas, although David wasn’t sure anything would catch Max’s interest. Cowboys, werewolves, super heroes, Max wasn’t really into regular kid stuff, was he? David made a displeased face at the more graphic masks, but he had to compromise. “See anything you like?”   
  
“Uh...What about this?” Max asked. He surprised David by taking something from the full costume section and walked it up to him sheepishly. First, David saw lots of green but then he realized what it was and it warmed his heart.  _ Robin Hood? That’s right...Aster’s been teaching him archery.  _ “Reminds you of someone, huh?” he asked with a smile, and Max rolled his eyes. “Aster’s the only cool person I know in this entire shithole town.”   
  
“What about Vicky?”   
  
“...Her, too. I mean, it’s  _ okay _ , but the hat looks kind of dumb.”   
  
“With our combined arts and craft skills, I bet we can make you a really cool cloak with a hood and all. And if you ask Aster nicely, she might let you borrow one of her handmade bows.” David handed the costume back to him, and Max looked almost enthusiastic about it. David approved of his choice a lot. It was genuine and it would be easy to layer on what was looking like a chilly October to come. “I’ll do it for the candy.”   
  
“A worthy cause. Okay, let’s get a move on, it’s getting late.”   
  
Max was definitely feeling better, as he showed David his new calluses while they walked out of the store, along the insides of his fingers from drawing the bow. While David didn’t want Aster to take him hunting and  _ hardcore  _ camping like she forced him to as a child, he was proud of Max. Training with the bow was something that took so much dedication, and the fact that Max powered through the blisters and had toughened up his hand already in the short time ago he had begun told David just how diligent he was. And Max was relatively chatty on the drive home, at least for the first half until they got into the neighborhood.   
  
As David put the car into park, Max spoke up. “Wait. Can-- can we sit here for a sec? I don’t want to go in yet.”   
  
David stopped, just about to open his door. “Sure,” he said quietly, uncertain of what Max was up to. Did he just not want to see Vicky? But David turned the heat back on in case. He watched Max fidget in his seat for a while, and hugged the shopping back and its contents closer the way he would with Mr. Honeynuts. “You told me once that you didn’t think I needed to be fixed.” Max said after a long time.   
  
It was a moment before David remembered. That day, after training him to protect himself and how Max spiraled rapidly into one of the worst breakdowns David had ever seen. Now he understood what he hadn’t then. One of Max’s biggest battles was against hopelessness. What was the purpose of learning to protect yourself when there was no stopping the one hurting you for good? “I remember,” David said patiently, but nothing more. He wanted to let Max have control of the conversation.   
  
“But you picked out a therapist for me.”   
  
David turned around in his seat to see that Max had curled up the way he did when he was shutting down. He could see him clenching his jaw tight and his eyes watering. “S-so you were-- you were bullshitting. You think I’m broken. I mean...it’s not that big of a deal.” Max dragged the cuff of his sleeve roughly over his eyes to dry them but it didn’t make much difference. “Because you’re right.”   
  
“No!” David blurted it out louder than he meant to, and he knew he startled Max, but he wasn’t able to reel it in. “God Almighty, _no_, Max, that is not what’s going on and you are  **not ** broken. I picked a therapist for you because I--” he turned to look at Max and saw the desperation in his big round eyes. How utterly despondent he looked. He just wanted to help him, but he didn’t know how. “Because you’re my family. But there’s a tricky thing about family. You can love each other more than anything, but sometimes that isn’t enough to be what each other need and mistakes made with good intentions can still do a lot of harm. I didn’t want to try to help you and end up make things  _ worse  _ because I’d be stumbling around in the dark, so I decided to get outside help from someone who  __ definitely  knows what they’re doing. I didn’t do it because I couldn’t be bothered to try myself.”   
  
“But what if it doesn’t work? What if I do the therapy and I don’t get better and I’m just like this?”    
  
“I wish I had the answers, buddy, I really do. All I can say is try your best to have faith.” He knew what a lazy answer that sounded like, but he meant it. “What do you think faith means?”   
  
“I dunno, same thing as hope, I guess? Unless you mean the religious kind. I’m not religious like you, David.”   
  
“Faith is something anyone can have,” David turned off the headlights but kept the heat on. “It’s about being steadfast in a belief that is important to you, and it can be anything you choose. And that belief bolsters you to keep going, through hard times and to uplift others through them, too. Whatever you have faith in is your choice, Max, that’s your freedom. But if I can suggest something to start with…”   
  
“Ugh.”   
  
“Start with yourself. Give this a chance for a bit, then you can start doubting. Does that sound like a plan?”   
  
“If I say yes, can I go inside and get away from your lousy peptalks?”   
  
David turned off the car and nodded, feeling reassured that Max seemed much calmer. No tears, no trembling, no unsteady breathing. It was an improvement that he had a little more control over his extreme moods, which David knew was something he would be working on in therapy. He helped Max out of the car and ushered him indoors out of the chill, where they got a very bouncy greeting from Winifred and Max acknowledged her for the first time all day as he sat right down on the floor and hugged her, accepting nuzzles and kisses without complaint. “Love you, too,” he mumbled into her fur as she wagged her fluffy tail wildly, completely content to be squeezed by a small child.   
  
David checked the time on his watch, as he heard the sound of Aster pulling into the driveway. “Oh! She’s early,” Victoria exclaimed joyfully, before she departed to put the kettle on, as per routine to welcome her wife home. David got the door for Aster, but noticed right away something was wrong. She was being followed by a squad car, which planted itself on the curb side in front of the house. He could tell right away by Aster’s intense walk they were there for the night. “Max, can you take your stuff upstairs real quick?”   
  
“I’m busy,” he said, rubbing Winifred’s belly but then Aster stepped over the threshold and snapped her fingers on her intact hand. “Winifred, mind him. Up.” She ordered sharply, and Winifred immediately rolled to her feet and began pushing and nudging Max. “I’m not a sheep!” he shouted over his shoulder, but he wouldn’t disobey the dog as she herded him to the stairs and away.    
  
Vicky peeked around the corner at them with a china teapot, looking concerned as she spotted the car just before David shut the front door. “Lock it,” Aster said and David instinctively did, the knob and the deadbolt. “What’s going on?” he asked.   
  
Aster held up a hand for them to wait for a moment, as she checked the stairs for an eavesdropper and returned after not finding one. “Auntie,” David said more forcefully to grab her attention. He didn’t normally call her that anymore, not since he was a kid, but on occasion it applied.

She checked the windows, then began closing the blinds and as she clicked on her dispatch radio, she finally spoke to them. “Portland P.D recovered a body a few days ago, and it’s finally been identified. I’m just taking some precautions.”   
  
“Body?” Victoria scurried over to her wife, setting the pot down and helping her get her coat off but Aster refused any help with her weapon holster. She was keeping it on. “Whose? Is it anyone we know?”   
  
Aster looked nervous and if she was nervous, David was terrified. She kept glancing down the hall and he only realized she was looking for Max when she whispered it to the two of them. “It’s Rishima Purohit. It’s been ruled a homicide, and there’s no location on Sunil.”   
  
His first nightmarish thought was that Sunil was responsible. All the things he had done to Max, how he had treated her mother, it made sense. That kind of cruelty? He could be capable of anything, murder included. But David had hoped he wasn’t truly that depraved.  _ Was it because she sent Max away? Oh, god, how do we tell Max? How’s he even going to handle it?  _ “Is--” his voice hitched, his throat tight and mouth dry with terror. “Is Max safe here?”   
  
“I’ve made arrangements, yes. Go home, David. Act like everything is normal.”    
  
David crossed his arms and hissed in a low voice, “Is it normal for you to tote your handgun all over the house? Or a squad car to be crouching on the public street right outside? He’s going to notice!”   
  
Aster shot him a scathing look, as Vicky wildly gestured from behind her for him to leave it alone. “Go. Home. Son.” She said through clenched teeth.    
  
“I am  _ not  _ your son,” it was instinctive. A knee jerk reaction. He could swear Aster was going to cuff him, but she didn’t. Instead, she stepped forward and pointed a finger in his face and growled, “When our home is under siege, we close ranks to protect each other. Do as I say if you want to keep your boy safe.”   
  
The contest of wills only lasted a moment before David realized he was only defiant out of fear. She was right. They had to be a team, and Max needed them.. “Let me say goodnight to him, or he’ll know something is wrong.”   
  
He was allowed to upstairs and he knocked on Max’s door and got a call of, “It’s open,” that allowed him inside. Max was laying on the floor, leaning back with a rope toy in his hands, as Winifred sat calmly with it clamped in her jaws, making no effort at all as Max scrabbled and pulled but she didn’t budge.    
  
David couldn’t tell this boy his mother was dead. Murdered. Not tonight, at least. “Hey, little bear, I gotta go. Can I get a hug goodbye?”   
  
“Whatever, sure.” Max grunted, as Winifred began to inch back and dragged him with her. He got to his feet and held out his arms, waiting. David knelt down to his level and pulled him in. Max surprised him by squeezing his little arms tight around him, his fingers holding his jacket tightly. “I do feel better,” his voice was muffled in his shirt front. “Thanks, David...For trying. I’m sorry I don’t make it easy, but I’ll-- I’ll work on it.”   
  
“I’m always here if you need me,” he said, leaning down and pressing a kiss to the top of Max’s head. David wished he could say something to help steel him against what was about to happen, but he couldn’t give anything away.  _ Bad things are coming, but you don’t need to be scared. I won’t let anyone hurt you  _ ** _ever _ ** _ again.  _ But he just said, “I love you, buddy.”   
  
“Gross.” Max said, as he pushed David away but he saw there was a smile on his face. “Good night, idiot.”   
  
“Good night, Max.”   
  
It broke his heart to keep leaving him, even if it it was only for a little bit longer. This time, David had to fight himself every step of the way, each one a battle to convince his feet to move. He wanted to stay and tuck him in, to watch the windows with Aster, to have first hand assurance that Max wasn’t in harms way. 

But in the end, he got into his car and drove home to an empty house.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning. There's some gun mentions in this chapter y'all, purely because Aster is...intense. We'll get to her backstory later. Enjoy the angst!

“It’s going to be chilly. Wear them, or we’re not going.”   
  
Max knew he wasn’t going to win this argument, but he made sure to make a show of groaning as loudly as possible and stomping back into his room before giving in.  _ This is fucking ridiculous, _ he thought as he yanked off his costume and grabbed the dumb long john pajamas David had bought. This new strict side of him wasn’t Max’s favorite at all, but he would put up with it for the candy. Once the layers were on and the costume over it, he kicked his door open and glared up at David. “Are you happy now?” he demanded, moodily yanking his green hood up. He wasn’t allowed to have real arrows. Aster had given him a quiver of them, but removed the heads so they weren’t sharp. He did appreciate the cool recurve she had lent him, though.   
  
David smiled down at him and planted his hands on his hips cheerfully, “You bet! This is going to be so much fun, Max, you’re gonna love it! But we have to go over some ground rules.”   
  
_ “Uuuugggh!” _ __   
  
“Stop that.”   
  
“Ugh.” he gave a last half hearted one for good measure.

“One, stay close to me. At least where I can see you and you can hear me, got it?”  
  
“Yep, I will ditch you immediately.”  
  
“Good. Two, absolutely _no _crossing the street without me. That’s a big one. Everyone drives worse than ever on holidays.”  
  
“I got it,” Max looked out the hallway window, seeing there were already kids going by. The doorbell even rang and he heard the chorus of kids calling_ trick or treat! _As Vicky answered it. He subconsciously started fidgeting to and from each foot, starting to get impatient. “Can we _go _yet?”  
  
“Three, say thank you when you get candy.”  
  
“Can. We_. Gooo?!”_   
  
“Yeah, we can go. You sure are excited, Max!”  
  
Max grabbed his hand and began hauling him down the stairs, not entertaining him with an answer. In truth, he really was excited. He had never been trick or treating, he had never gotten to pick out a costume or celebrate any fun holidays and this was one of the few that actually struck his interest. All day, Vicky regaled him with stories about the older traditions of Halloween and Aster cut in with her own, or at least tried to before her dispatch radio went off.  
  
It sunk his heart, the look on Victoria’s face when she realized Aster wasn’t taking the night off after all. A solo Morticia, with no Gomez and Max had been really looking forward to seeing Aster in the get up. But no such luck.   
  
“You look awesome,” Max told Vicky, as she shut the door and turned around. Her make up was perfect, with the black lips and sharpened cheekbones and her long, cascading black gown with the flowy sleeves. “How’d you get the wig on?”  
  
“Witch craft,” Victoria said with a grin, making a dazzling gesture with her fingers. “Kidding, it’s all bobby pins and gel. I’ll show you my ways later. Be safe and have fun! And stay with David and don’t eat anything home made and--”  
  
“He’s already covered it all.”  
  
“I’m sure,” she said, stooping down and pecking his cheek. Max wiped it vigorously just in case there was lipstick on it, and began to circle his way around her in case she made any sudden moves to nab him again. It had become less of him putting up a front of not liking the affection, but more like a game of theirs, an inside joke even. David had stopped to put Winifred’s harness on and outfitted her with a comfortable lincoln green bandanna so she matched their ensemble. Max was already scampering down the steps by the time they caught up and he waited at the gate for the dog before passing through. 

“Max, not too far, remember?” David minded him, locking the gate and tucking the long leash in his pocket. Max was surprised he didn’t have Winifred clipped to it, and wondered briefly why he was being lenient with the law, but he didn’t want to open a can of worms he couldn’t close.    
  
They went from door to door and Max at first didn’t feel very talkative to the nice people who tried to engage with him. They asked him questions about his costume, there were moms who told him he was adorable and all that stuff. But he just awkwardly said thank you for the candy and David filled in the gaps. He was surprised when a few of them recognized him and even some passing kids did, all calling him “Mr. Rowntree.” Which was fucking weird. David wasn’t a ‘mister’. He was just...David.    
  
After a conversation that seemed to drag on forever with a gaggle of a family that stopped on the sidewalk to chat, it dawned on Max. “Are those your students?” he asked, watching the younger kids go.    
  
“Some of them,” David answered, cheerfully waving them goodbye. “Those are my first graders. Laney, Joshua and Patrick.”   
  
“You know all your students names?”   
  
“Of course! It helps that I have an attendance sheet every day to fall back on, though.” he said, walking around the corner with them into the next section of the neighborhood. “How’s home school, by the way?”   
  
“It’s easier than I thought,” Max admitted and that was true. He adjusted his candy bag to the other shoulder. He was proud of how heavy it was getting, but it was also making his arm tired. “I kind of like it, actually.”   
  
“Do you still want to try public school?”   
  
“Well, yeah but I’d rather be a homeschooled weirdo than a ten year old two grades behind.”   
  
“I was thinking about that recently,” David stopped him at a crosswalk, putting an arm in front of Max as he hit the button with the other hand and they waited for the light, despite the street being almost deserted. Max looked up at him, uncertain. He had never really been close to a teacher, but if he had to choose one, David was probably ideal. He could trust him not to ignore him when he asked for help, and Max was most anxious about getting left behind if he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the class. People could view him as a long of bad things, but somehow  _ stupid  _ was the one that hurt most. “There’s a program at the school I teach at, it’s for kids who need a little extra guidance, for all different reasons. It’s called Assisted Education. All your academics are taken in a smaller class setting and there’s more than one teacher, but classes like art, P.E and music can be taken with the rest of the student body. Recess, too.”

He didn’t know how to feel about that. He didn’t want to be grouped into a category. What would the other students be like? Would they be like him? That sounded like a recipe for disaster. But if he  _ did  _ go, he would be with other kids. And he was becoming more and more unhappy with his isolation than he thought he would. While he liked to have his space and boundaries, complete separation wasn’t what Max wanted at all. The chance of making friends terrified him but it also made him a little excited. “Could I be in your music class?”

“Hmm, I could call in a favor and arrange that.” David said, and gave Max a wink. “But no favoritism! I’ll have to treat you like all my other students.”

“But I  _ am  _ your favorite, right?” Max was just poking fun at him, as they headed across the street. But David caught him off guard with a quiet, “Of course you are.” 

Max slowly looked up at him, and David just gave him an affectionate half smile. “That’s our secret, though. If you really want to try the program, I’ll put it together...go on, ring the bell on that house. It’s the last one before we circle back.”

He inched up the steps and looked over his shoulder at David, who waved at him encouragingly. It was his first house he was going up to alone, but to his relief, nobody answered the door and there was a bowl of Twix bars with a  _ ‘Take one please!’ _ sign. He was tempted to grab a fistful but with David watching, he sighed and followed the sign’s request. As he descended back to the sidewalk, he was starting to feel a little tired and it  _ was  _ getting chilly and that was giving him an itch in his chest he didn’t like. It was one of those starting signs. “Hey, David, I think…” he slowed to a stop.

David had backed off to the grass off of the pavement and was quickly leashing Winifred. Max had never seen her in such a way. Her hackles were raised and wherever her heavy coat could stand on end, it was. Her lips were curled back to show her large teeth and a deep, menacing growl rumbled through her chest. Max was almost scared of her, until he reminded himself that it was Winnie. She would never, ever hurt him but she looked so vicious that he wasn’t certain anymore.    
  
He stopped at the bottom of the porch and hugged his candy bag against his chest, unable to get his feet to move.    
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
To say they had  _ argued  _ was an understatement.    
  
David was getting very frustrated that Aster was bouncing back and forth between letting him secretly parent through her until Max moved in with him to barring him from the decisions entirely. Behind the closed door of her office, they fought in hushed voices as he insisted Max could go trick-or-treating. He had worked so hard to get his costume ready in a short amount of time, and it was a holiday that revolved around mischief and candy. What was more perfect for Max?   
  
“He needs this,” he insisted, following her around her desk as she pretended to look through some important file. “It’s a patrolled neighborhood! There will be tons of people and I’ll be with him every second, you have an officer planted outside the house that I have on speed dial and it’s two hours tops.”   
  
“Two hours in the dark. I can’t guarantee he’s safe out of the house at night, David!”   
  
“You can say that about anybody on any night! Aster,  _ please _ . His hopes are up and you know how important it is to him that people keep their word. I have to--” he faltered. He still hadn’t come to terms with how  _ horrible  _ it was. Aster couldn’t tell him details because it was still under investigation, but he knew Max’s mother had not died peacefully and that fact alone would surely just be new nightmare fodder. _ Poor Max. **Poor Rishima**. _ “I have to tell him about his mother soon. Let him make some good memories before that time comes. I didn’t have that, I didn’t get to be eased into it. Let me do this one thing for him first.”   
  
Aster pinched the bridge of her nose and let out the longest suffering sigh as she slapped the file down on the many, many others. “Is your license valid?” she demanded, dropping her hands to her hips.   
  
David was confused. “My drivers license? Yeah, of course.”   
  
“No, you  _ ninny _ , your concealed carry.” she deadpanned, moving her jacket to show her service weapon, as if he needed the emphasis to understand.   
  
“Oh! Oh, no, it’s been expired for years. You know I’m not comfortable with it,” he avoided her eyes and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, sensing her disapproval. “I didn’t plan on renewing it.”   
  
“David. I’m not kidding, Max may need to be placed in protective custody before the week is over. His father is a dangerous individual who I have no doubt is capable of extreme violence.”   
  
He put his hands in his own pockets to hide how they were shaking. Aster tended to take things to the extreme, which was understandable considering her past. Bits and pieces of history and a childhood of picking up scraps of the story combined with new adult understanding did lead him to a few conclusions. Whatever happened to her, to his parents, in ‘84, survival wasn’t achieved through peaceful means. Aster shed blood, and a lot of it, and he hoped to never know the details. But if she truly believed being armed was necessary, he began to doubt if this was a good idea. “I know that. I've seen what he did to his own _son_...I can’t open carry. There’ll be kids everywhere, with their parents, and I’ll know half of them from my job.”   
  
“Then let’s compromise.”

In the end, they agreed to take Winifred and he would carry some pepper spray. He got lectured for ten grueling minutes about sticking to the route she had mapped for him and being back by the time she set.    


  
  
David kept hearing the intensity of her voice, the words in his mind as he pulled Winifred closer but didn’t try to calm her. He knew this behavior. She wasn’t just trained to search and rescue, she was an experienced guard dog and she knew how to signal her owners of danger. He followed the direction of her snarling and noticed there was a person standing between the street lamps across the street, simply just  _ standing _ . It looked like a woman, dressed in a vintage long white nurse’s dress with a plain white mask. David shuddered. Somehow, the masks with the last amount of detail were the creepiest, especially if they resembled a human face.  _ Creepy _ .   
  
He didn’t hear what Max said, but when he heard his voice. He didn’t want to turn his back on this person, but he did turn his head to look at Max and was struck by the obvious fear on his face. “Winnie, stop it,” he told her in a loud whisper. “You’re freaking me out! Why is she doing that?”   
  
“I’ll tell you at home.” David said, making a conscious effort to keep his voice steady. Max hesitated as he offered his hand to him but now Winifred was full blown barking and he saw in his peripheral the person was starting to cross the street. David closed the distance and grabbed Max’s hand, who yelped, “Hey, watch it!” and he felt bad for being rough but he wasn’t taking chances. Max didn’t fight him as he began marching them back the way they had come, probably because he was too surprised. “Keep up,” David told him anxiously, fighting the urge to check over his shoulder.    
  
“I’m  _ trying _ .” Max growled, squirming his hand but David wasn’t letting go for anything. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”   
  
“Winifred is trained to warn people if she thinks there’s trouble. Like an animal or a fire,” David watched Winifred, who was still growling low and occasionally looked behind them, pacing sometimes on the leash but she never slowed enough to leave their side. “Or a weapon.” he finished more quietly.    
  
Max stopped resisting. David felt bad for scaring him, but he couldn’t tolerate any attitude at a time like this. “What, like a knife?”   
  
“No.”  _ Dogs can’t smell knives _ . He felt Max slow down and out of the corner of his eye, he saw him start to turn. David panicked and pulled on his hand sharply to move him forward along. “Don’t look.”   
  
“ _ Ow! _ David!”   
  
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, did that hurt? I didn’t mean it, Max, I swear, I’m  _ so  _ sorry.”   
  
“Not really, you’re just pulling kind of hard.” Max mumbled. He knew he was trying to seem like he didn’t care, but David knew better. He was just hiding that it bothered him. “I can’t keep up with you.”   
  
“I’m sorry.” he said again, and couldn’t say it enough. “I just need you to act like nothing’s going on, can you do that?”   
  
“I guess.”   
  
“Good. Just keep walking and looking forward, until we’re home.”   
  
They walked in silence for a minute and he felt Max switch from being uncooperative to holding his hand in return and walking much closer to his side than before. It wasn’t like Max lately to be so quiet, but he huddled his hood closer around his face and David met his eyes. “I’m probably overreacting,” he joked.   
  
Max scoffed in agreement. But then he asked with his voice down, “What if you’re not?”   
  
“I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Max. We have Winnie and there’s people around, the street lamps are on and the two of us are hardly helpless.” He listed off the reasons to not be afraid to reassure the both of them. It helped him to stay calm but he did let go of Max’s hand to switch to putting his arm around him and keeping him close, hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling that someone was behind them. The back of his neck prickled with warning and he had to remind himself to blink with how hard he focused on staring forward. But he dared anyone to try and remove Max from his side. He was ready.

Max used his now free hand to take out his phone and David looked down without turning his head to see what he was up to. He watched Max open the camera, but then turn it to the selfie setting.  _ Max, you’re so clever.  _ He just looked like a kid glued to his phone screen to any onlookers. “Anyone there?” he asked quietly.   
  
“Somebody dressed as a nurse. Way far back. She keeps stopping and then going again, like she’s trying to stay out of the street lights.”   
  
_ Maybe this has nothing to do with Sunil. Maybe it’s just a Halloween thing. Please just be a random predator and not something organized…But if it is, why would he send someone? Why not just come himself?  _ _   
_ __   
“We’re almost home,” David said, and Winifred hadn’t stopped growling still. Every so often, she would sound off, her way of saying they weren’t out of the woods but that the danger wasn’t close enough to threaten them. It was the most nerve wracking five minutes of his life, until they finally turned the corner and he saw the garden and Tudor house ahead, the lights shining through the window and the police car parked out front. David finally dared to raise his hand from Max’s shoulder to wave and flag down the officer inside. Moments later, the drivers door opened and she stepped out.   
  
David stole a glance over his shoulder just in time to see the individual who was following them stop, back up and exit around the bend of the street out of sight. Winifred went quiet and sat down on the sidewalk.    
  
“Is there something wrong?” the officer asked, stopping in front of them.   
  
“Some creep was following us, and Winnie thinks she had a gun.” Max jumped to answer before he could and David stammered, “It could have been something else, let’s not jump to conclusions!”   
  
The officer studied them with a quirked brow, before she gestured for them to move past her. “Better get inside, you two. I’ll let the chief know.” And promptly clicked her radio on, which crackled loudly as it connected to the right channel. 

  
David made sure every lock was done on the door after they were inside, and checked through the windows to make sure there was no one outside, and there wasn’t. Curfew had set in and parents had taken their children home. It was only the occasional straggler now. Max kept wandering around the room behind him, at least until Winifred got his attention and he sat down to pet her. “It’s past your bedtime,” David said softly, yanking the curtains shut.    
  
“Like I’ll be able to sleep after  _ that  _ shit.”   
  
He couldn’t blame Max, but routines were important. It felt silly to be concerned with something so mundane, but he didn’t want Max to be any more disturbed than he already was. David went over to him and helped unclip the side of his cloak and slid it off over his head, smiling at how much Max’s hair puffed up after. “I want you to try. Go grab your quilt for me, then head upstairs and get your p.j’s on, I’ll meet you.”   
  
David checked around the house for Victoria while Max followed his instructions with nothing more than a huff and an eye roll, but found a note in the kitchen.

  
  
_ Bringing dinner and candy to our brave protector! Home after Max’s bedtime. Xoxoxo _

_ -Vicky _

_   
_ _   
_ He picked his head up at the sound of little feet and Max entered the kitchen shortly after, already in his pajamas and dragging the quilt with him. He silently shoved it towards David, who just smiled and said, “Thank you very much. I’ll meet you up--”   
  
“No.” Max interrupted flatly, as he crossed his arms and stared straight down. “I feel like if we split up, someone’s gonna get stabbed by a lunatic lurking in a closet.”   
  
“Terrifyingly graphic, but I understand what you mean.” David draped the quilt over his arm and lead the way to the laundry room, where he tossed it in the dryer and set it for ten minutes. As it tumbled away, he sat down on the floor and patted it next to him. Max joined him shortly after, and the dog too. Max kept rotating his paracord and friendship bracelet together around his wrist, and David felt a small bit of warmth in his chest that even months later, he toted around the gift. But it shrank when Max asked, “So are you not going to tell me why there’s a cop planted outside our house lately, too?”   
  
_ Darn it, Aster. I told you he’d notice!  _ David chewed the inside of his cheek anxiously and tried desperately to think of a lie that wasn’t a lie. Something that would be an innocent placeholder until the real truth could come out. But he looked into Max’s eyes and realized two things. Nothing but the truth would pacify him, and Max could handle it. “Aster wants to do everything to keep you safe right now.” he confessed. “And she has some reasons to do that. I’m sorry people are shutting you out of what’s going on, bud, and I’m sorry I’m one of them. But I promise I’ll tell you everything really soon.”   
  
“That’s bullshit,” Max pulled his knees up to his chin and pouted.    
  
David couldn’t disagree. “I know…I’m sorry your Halloween got ruined, Max. I know how much it meant to you to celebrate your first holiday. I just wanted you to have fun.”   
  
“I did, up until our stalker.”   
  
David swiveled his head around, surprised at the admission. Max fished around in his pajama pocket, before he produced two fun sized Milky Ways and offered one of them to David. “I mean it. I really did. Now eat some candy and shut up.”   
  
They ate their chocolate in comfortable silence until the dryer went off and David ushered Max to his feet while he retrieved the quilt, which was now extra warm and cozy. “This is a trick my mom used to do to get me to sleep,” he explained with a smile, as he fluffed it out and then wrapped Max up tight in it before the boy could protest, swaddling him from head to toe. He was certain half of the trick was so his mother had an easier time putting his squirmy childhood self back to bed without any escape attempts, but Max didn’t really seem to mind as he scooped him up, one arm behind his back and the other under his knees. “This feels like its for babies,” Max growled.    
  
“It _works_ on babies.”   
  
“You’re lucky Aster doesn’t let me have sharp arrows.”    
  
But David didn’t buy it, since Max failed to stifle a yawn halfway up the stairs. He plunked Max down on his bed, and quickly arranged the rest of the covers in place over him before he could sit up. “Winnie,” he called, patting the bed and she promptly climbed up and laid down alongside Max, who cracked a smile as she licked his cheek lovingly. “Where’s Mr. Honeynuts?” David asked, noticing the bear wasn’t resting on his pillows like usual. Max cuddled Winifred’s head on his chest and ran his hand over her ears repeatedly, and she patiently held still for him. “He’s on the shelf,” Max answered after a bit and pointed to his book case. Sure enough, the bear was sitting upright, lovingly placed so next to his half of the spirit staff.    
  
David noted the walk between the bed and the shelf was all the way across the room. It was normal for a kid around his age or older to drift away from the comfort of a stuffy, but David expected him to hold onto it for at least another year, with his night terrors and anxiety. “You don’t think he’s lonely way over there?” he asked carefully.    
  


Max looked down without an answer and slid deeper under the covers to hug Winifred properly, nuzzling his face into her fur. “Well, even if you don’t need him, I think he needs you. I bet he misses his best friend.”   
  
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a toddler, idiot.”   
  
David smiled and got to his feet. It only took a moment to fetch the bear and bring it back to Max. He held it up to him and gave it a wave with one arm, “Come oooon, look at this face.” he said, and Max picked his head up. He stole his chance to boop the bear’s nose to Max’s, who smiled and laughed for a split second, and that made the entire night better for David. Although, he did get smacked on the arm pretty good before Max took the bear from him with a grumpy, “Don’t do that.”   
  
“Ow,” David laughed and made a show of rubbing his arm. “You want your sound machine on?”   
  
“Actually, I got some music I sleep to now. The c.d is on top of the player.”   
  
David left his side to pick up the case and he was quite surprised. “Chopin?” he asked, flipping it over so Max could see, who shrugged without making eye contact. “Turns out I like piano. And I like Chopin. I can be musically cultured too, David, don't be so surprised.”   
  
He put it in the player and as soon as the first soft pulsing keys began to play, it transported him back to old memories. Sitting side by side in their living room, his mother’s long fingers dancing across beaten up keys with all the grace and fluidity a person could possess. Every wrong note he hit as he played the octave adjacent with his clumsier little hands made her smile and giggle, and he felt encouraged not to falter. All the times they played together in Mass, and when he was eight, he finally played well enough to do it on his own while she sang hymns. And when she did, it didn’t matter that there were pews full of people watching him. He didn’t feel their gazes or his stage fright. He just felt the melody shared between him and his mother.    
  
“My mom loved Chopin,” he admitted, turning it up a tiny bit. “She used to say all these quotes about music, I don’t know how she kept them all in her head and had them ready. She had so many concertos and sonatas she knew by heart, but I could never memorize more than maybe two at best.”   
  
He trailed off, and noticed Max was sitting upright and staring at him with his intense eyes. David coughed awkwardly and backed away from the player, “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble.”   
  
“It’s okay. What kind of quotes?” Max's tone was so oddly gentle, in a way David had hardly ever heard him talk like before. It was reserved for his friends or Winifred, but now David had the luck of it being directed at him.    
  
David had to think about it for a moment. But it came more easily than he thought it would, like a firefly floating up to him in the dark. “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. Victor Hugo, I think.”   
  
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Max said, sounding surprised. David sat down on the side of his bed and got comfortable as he could, since it was only Max sized. “It sure does. Now close your eyes and shush.”   
  
“I will if you give me back scratches like Gwen does,” Max negotiated and David suddenly remembered he had yet to call her about the many things he needed her advice about. Max’s emotional treatment, revisiting the whole birthday plan and _Rishima_. Now he had to tell her about Rishima. But he nodded and Max rolled over and tucked his head against his lap and David ran his fingers along his back to calm him. “Do you ever get Vicky or Aster when you have trouble sleeping?”   
  
“Not really,” the boy closed his eyes, and David felt the tension in his shoulders go. As good as Max was at concealing it, he knew he was afraid. “They come if they hear me, but I don’t bother them.”   
  
“You won’t be bothering them, Max, they  _ love  _ you.”   
  
“I know that but it’s not the same. I miss Gwen. And you, I guess. You were the first people who really gave a shit, nobody else did this kind of stuff for me before you and...I don’t know. It just feels weird asking somebody else.”    
  
If David said he hadn’t been worried Max might prefer his foster moms over him, he’d be lying. He felt terrible for it, but it was true. It was a fear that nagged him ceaselessly that when he told Max he’d be moving in with him and he’d be his foster dad, Max would want to stay with Aster and Vicky. Would he resent the three of them? Of course not. Would he be crushed? Absolutely.    
  
He rested his other hand against Max’s head and rubbed his thumb over his hair. Max reached an arm around him, a sleepy half-hug. “If you have bad dreams, you can call me. My phone is never on silent, and I promise I’ll wake up. I want you to do that instead of trying to tough it out alone.”   
  
“You won’t get mad?”

“Never. You want to know something super duper cheesy my mom used to say to me?”   
  
“Ha, sure. This should be good.”   
  
This was something he knew by heart. He carefully reached over to the lamp and clicked it off, the only light illuminating the room coming from the hall and the window. “I love you more than there are trees in the forest, than there is salt in the sea and there are stars in the sky.”   
  
“Scientists think there are about ten billion observable stars in our universe,” Max murmured sleepily.    
  
“Is that so?” David smiled and switched from back scratches to drawing very gentle circles on Max’s forehead and cheek, a silly thing his mom used to do to get him to sleep. She would tell him it was a magic trick and he believed her. He felt his phone ding in his pocket but Max didn’t stir or say a word. He waited a minute until he was sure Max was at least halfway to dreamland before he checked it.   
  
_ [Aster] Do not go home. Stay in the house. I can’t leave yet, back soon. _ _   
_ _   
_ He put it away and leaned his head back, closing his own eyes and letting himself feel blanketed by the gentle piano music and even sound of Max’s breathing, free of coughs. He wasn’t sure how much time went by, as he must have napped a tiny bit before his phone went off again.    
  
He rubbed his eyes and blinked until it became clear.   
  
_ [Aster] Officer not responding. Check outside for her. _ _   
_ _ [Aster] Is she still there??? _ _   
_ _ [Aster] office safe code is 0501. Safety off/loaded. _ _   
_ _ [Aster] Omw DO NOT GO OUTSIDE _ _   
_ _   
_ David gulped nervously, and reached over Max as gingerly as possible to move the curtain. The cop car was still out there, but he noticed instantly the street lamp in front of the house and porch light was off.  __ Don’t wake up , he prayed as he inched off of the bed and Winifred lifted her head with a soft sound. “Protect Max,” he told her in a whisper, gesturing to the boy and she climbed off the bed with him but stood firm by its side, obeying the command. He tiptoed through the door and into the hallway. It was just down the stairs and around the bed to Aster’s office. He eased his way down the steps and checked the front door as he did, which was still soundly locked to his relief, so he turned to head to the office. 

  
His relief trickled away into abject terror when he saw the backdoor was hanging open.    



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Max has another graphic flashback in this chapter, you've been warned.

Max couldn’t remember what he had been dreaming about. It hadn’t really been anything visual, but a song that kept playing through his head, soft piano notes that carried on forever. And he was content to listen and sleep, at least until he was suddenly jarred out of it by a new sound. At first, he thought it was distant thunder or maybe the sound of a car rolling up the driveway under his window and he awoke with his heart thumping hard against his ribs.  
  
He rubbed his eyes, straining to keep them open as he shivered, feeling unusually cold. It was never this chilly in his room, but there was a briskness that made his skin prickle and he felt around the bed blindly. “Winnie?” he asked in a whisper, and got the noise that had woken him in response. Finally, he realized it was her growling. She was planted halfway towards the door and he could hear her rumbling the sound of warning deep in her throat. He slowly started to sit up, but then he saw _ it _ and stopped.   
  
In the darkness, he only knew it was a tall person lurking in the hallway and getting closer. _Oh, shit._   
  
All at once, Max remembered how trick-or-treating ended. He could feel his pulse going under his jaw and he couldn’t decide whether or not to scream out, to lay back down and pretend to sleep or what. As the figure moved quickly into the room and past Winifred, he opened his mouth for the first option but all that came out was a muffled yelp as a hand slapped over it.   
  
“It’s me!” a familiar voice whispered and Max was able to make out just half of a face in the light of the window, now that his eyesight adjusted to the darkness. _ David! _ He thought in relief and tried to pry the hand off but to his bewilderment, David wouldn’t let him go. He watched his friend gesture silently with a finger to his own lips for him to be silent and Max slowly lowered his hands. With David’s gaze boring into him, he managed a short nod to show he understood and let out a shaky breath as the hand was removed. _The hell is his problem? _

David quickly but quietly pulled the covers back and Max flinched at the cold, but he wasn’t able to move besides cooperatively putting his arms around David’s shoulders as he picked him up and held him tighter than he _ever_ had. It almost hurt, but he didn’t want David to let him go for anything, not with how David seemed so shaken up to the point where he thought making a noise was a bad idea. Max wanted to ask where Aster and Vicky were, what was going on, to get _some kind of explanation_ to quell the growing panic in his heart but he knew better. If David told him to be silent, he should be silent.   
  
He could feel David’s heart was beating just as if not faster than his own as he started to tiptoe out of the room and Winifred silently moved with them. He had no idea where David was planning to go. Outside? Was he getting the cop? Or maybe going to Aster’s room? He wanted to tell him there was a knife under the pillow and he even began to open his mouth to whisper it as loud as he possibly dared, but he snapped it shut and David stopped dead in his tracks as there was a loud, drawn out squeak. He knew that was the second to the top step on the staircase, where the board was warped with age. He slowly turned his head to see a newcomer emerge at the top of the stairs and even in the darkness, she was illuminated as her stark white costume and mask reflected what very little light there was. He recognized her instantly and felt his whole body become cold with terror. _ She followed us home. How did she get in the house?! _

  
  
“Don’t be scared,” her voice was so shockingly soft and sweet that Max almost felt reassured. It had a smooth, hypnotic tone to it that urged him to believe her but the way David took a half step back and turned to the side slightly in an effort to shield him reminded him that was absurd. “I am not here to hurt either of you.”

  
  
“Then why-- why _ are _you here?” David asked, and his trembling voice didn’t comfort Max at all.

  
  
“I simply come with a message. From a father...to a son.” She replied, as she unwound something from her wrist and it jingled quietly as it dangled down, some kind of necklace that bore a glossy shine in the gloom. She tilted her head to the side at a steep angle and Max winced at how loudly her neck cracked with the bend. _ Father to son. Father to son. Father...Father? _   
  
Max blinked, and there was no slightly built woman in a mask, but a large menacing man in white, holding the very same amulet in both hands the way one might a rosary. The end of it swung to and fro in a pendulum like motion, but it slowed in his eyes and he could perfectly remember it in detail. His father never took it off. The detail was scorched into his memory.   
  
It resembled a man hung upside by the ankles but the body was wrapped in bandages that covered the head entirely. There was a hole bored into the forehead and in the chest. And it was carved from bone, but Max didn’t know what kind. He was only sure that it was white, and it wasn’t plastic, metal or any kind of stone.   
  
He remembered it being one of the last things he saw before Father hurt him and he shut down. When he saw it coming towards him now, Max fell back on instinct and buried his face against the crook of David’s shoulder. _It's not real. It's not real. It's just a bad dream or a hallucination. It's all in your head, snap out of it!_   


“Don’t run,” he heard two voices say, a man’s and a woman’s, but David bolted back down the hallway and skidded to a stop to hold Max with one arm as he slammed the bedroom door shut. He nearly dropped Max, as the invader threw themselves against it, screaming intelligibly as David put all his weight into it and managed to get it shut and turned the lock. It rattled and jolted as it was assaulted, and David backed up as he caught his breath. “Don’t-- don’t be scared, Max. Everything’s going to be fine.”  
  
“Don't fucking lie to me, David!” Max lifted his head and looked around, but there was no way out. The window maybe, but there wasn’t time to figure out a safe way down from it and a drop could mortally injure, if not kill either of them. _This is actually real._ He felt mortified that he didn't say something cunning retort to this attacker or think of fighting back. But that was the thing. Max felt certain there was nothing he could do. That was the way it had always been. He couldn't resist or hide, he couldn't escape or do anything right. He just had to suffer through until it was over and it was _never over. _It had just been a fantasy, thinking this life would last. “I knew this would happen, I’m so _stupid_ and now he’s going to take me back and…”   
  
“Over my dead body!” David cut him off, his trembling voice steadying.   
  
“Probably will be,” Max joked emptily out of pure reflex. But it was a real fear. David was the one that was responsible for all these changes, that got him a home in Sleepy Peak. If anyone would pay for the trouble Father went through to take Max back, it was David.   
  
He tried to hold onto him but David set him down firmly on his feet and knelt down, taking his face in his hands. “Max, I need you to trust me. Whatever happens, whatever you hear, you don’t come out unless I or Aster or the police get you or unless you are absolutely, a hundred percent sure you are alone in this house.”   
  
_ Come out? _ Max thought. _Of where? _   
  
David rushed him by the shoulders over to the wall near his desk and he watched him feel along the molding at the corner before he pushed on it and Max momentarily marveled at how it clicked and opened inwards to a small space like a closet. “In you go,” he said.   
  
“No fucking way,” Max marveled no longer. “David, that’s tiny. I’ll run out of air!”   
  
“You’ll be safe. You have to, Max--”   
  
“NO! I won't! You can’t make me! I’m not doing it! David!” He tried to push past him but David picked him up under the arms, despite him kicking and shouting as David pushed him into the cramped space that smelled like wet wood and mothballs. It was just like home; a grown up had decided his fate for him, and he was helpless to stop it. “I hate you! You’re a fucking liar! You’re a liar and I hate you, _stop it, please!”_   
  
He turned around and struck David on the chest, shoulder, wherever he could with his fists until David grabbed his wrists to stop him and he thrashed until he gave up and sobbed. He could hear someone screaming, and an animal snarling. “Winnie,” he begged. “I want Winnie, is Winnie okay? I need her!”   
  
“You have to be quiet,” David said calmly, tears shining in his own eyes. “Do your best, Max.”   
  
He couldn't believe this was seriously happening. David wasn't going to go through with it. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t hate you. Please don’t…” Max tried, hoping that if he backtracked and apologized, maybe that would make a difference. But he knew when David leaned down and kissed his forehead and whispered, “Don't make a sound. Sing a song in your head.” it didn’t matter if he fought or guilt tripped David. Nothing would stop this and he just had to accept that and hope he could endure it another time. Max sat down and covered his mouth with both hands, as David shut the passage entrance and he was plunged into pitch black darkness.   
  
He flinched with a whimper as a sound that sent a painful twinge through his abdomen rang out somewhere. He had never heard it before, but he knew it was an animal yelping in pain. And then a noise like a gunshot rang out.

  
  
_ “You hid him? You’re just making this more fun for me!” _

_ “Please don’t do this. I don’t want to get violent, you can still leave us alone.” _

_   
_   
“I wasn’t supposed to hurt you. But I can just say you didn’t give me a choice.”

_   
_ _   
_ _ “Why are you doing this? Don’t you know what a monster Sunil is?! What he’s _done?!”

_   
_ _   
_ _ “ _ ** _Father_ ** _ Sunil.” _   


Max heard the impact of objects and sounds of people struggling. He heard the woman screech out in rage, and it took everything not to scream when it sounded like something shattering. He kept reminding himself that David knew how to fight. David had fought to protect him before and succeeded, there was no reason he couldn’t do it again. He would win, and then he would let him out and they would call the police and everything would be okay.  
  
Then he heard someone yell out in pain, and he knew it wasn’t the woman. He told himself again, _ everything will be okay. David will win. He’ll let me out. We’ll be okay. He’ll let me out. We’ll… _   
  
It was getting quieter. He heard two sharp cracks, and an ecstatic string of giggles that jumped in the middle with each one.   
  
_ “Sing a song in your head.” _   
  
Max closed his eyes and tried to think of a tune, any tune that came to mind. He covered his ears and mouthed the words as best he could with no sound. He knew he would say them all wrong without David’s help, but he heard David singing them in his mind and if he focused hard enough, he forgot where he was and heard nothing else.

  
  
_ O chì, chì mi na mòr-bheanna _

_ O chì, chì mi na còrr-bheanna _

_ O chì, chì mi na coireachan _

_ Chì mi na sgoran fo cheò... _   
  


* * *

  
_ Total darkness. No room to lay down. No air to breathe. _ ** _  
_ ** _   
_ _ Max started by begging, crying and ended with screaming as he threw himself against the cabinet door, beating it until his hands were bruised and battered. He stopped when something struck the door from the other side, as if he were just an animal in a cage making too much noise and Father snapped at him, “Be silent or I’ll _ ** _give _ ** _ you something to scream about!” before walking away. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ So he was silent. Max pressed himself back from the cabinet door as much as he could and covered his mouth with his hands, afraid to even _ breathe _ too loudly. This was worse than the belt. He’d rather that than this. Here, he couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t track time. He was trapped alone with his thoughts in the darkness and he became scared he would go blind if he was in there too long. He knew that Father would leave him with no food and no water until he was on the brink. There was no Mr. Honeynuts and no playing pretend or telling himself stories to get by. He had to be quiet and hope it couldn’t somehow be followed up by something worse. He couldn’t imagine what _ ** _‘worse’ _ ** _ would be, but he trusted Father already knew. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He didn’t know minutes or hours. He just knew he became so tired, he felt sick. His head spun and ached. His mouth became dry. His stomach twisted in sharp pains until he thought it was going to eat itself just for a little reprieve. He felt sinister tickling against his neck and ears and he swore he heard whispering in the cabinet with him, cruel tricks of his own mind that he tried to ignore but he had lost his voice and could only listen to them and his own heartbeat. _ _   
_   
He would give absolutely anything just to be able to lay down and not feel any pain anymore.   


* * *

  


“Max!”  
  
He flinched awake. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust, now that there was thin yellowish light coming through one crack along the floor and another going up the wall where it hinged open.   
  
“Max, where are you?” The voice called again and he felt along the walls to stand up, stumbling because his legs were asleep. He wanted to call out, but his mouth was dry and he was _ scared. _ “It’s Aster! You can come out now, sweetheart, I promise it’s over. You’re safe. Just let me know where you are and I’ll come get you.”   
  
“The wall,” he croaked but it was barely there. He pressed his hands against it, trying to feel for how he was meant to open it from this side. “I’m in the wall!”   
  
He started to worry she didn’t hear him, but all of a sudden he was blinded by light for the first time in so long and he fell forward. He would’ve hit the floor but strong arms caught him and gathered him close. A hand passed over his head for a moment, and he sensed the absence of two fingers on it. _ Morning? _ He thought weakly, his eyes still stinging as sunlight poured through the window. _ I must have passed out. _   
  
“Max, look at me. Are you hurt?” Aster demanded, leaning back to look him all over, checking his eyes, his face, his arms. He heard her, but he didn’t answer. He looked around his room, which had been completely _ destroyed. _ The bed was ripped to shreds, wounds bleeding stuffing ripped through the comforter and mattress by a sharp object. His bulletin board of all of his pictures and memories had been ripped off the wall, his desk knocked over, his camera smashed to smithereens, his stereo demolished and the window was broken. His eyes wandered around and he shuddered as they focused on dark red stains that blemished the wooden floor.  
  
That hurt. He really had put so much into it over the months to make it his own.  
  
Aster gave him a gentle shake, “Hey, I need you to focus right now. How do you feel? Are you cold?”

“No,” Max answered and it was true. He didn’t feel chilled at all. He just kept thinking about how fast he got from one place to another, physically and mentally. It had happened to him again. His fear took over, and the logical part of his brain had surrendered the controls to it._ I wasn’t really there, _ he kept telling himself but it didn’t help much. “Dav--David locked…” he pointed lamely in the direction of the hidden alcove, but he couldn’t stomach looking at it. “Why would he _do_ that to me?”   
  
He couldn’t process it. David would never hurt him. He promised. And like a stupid little kid, Max believed him. _ I got what I deserved for it _ .   
  
“He was trying to protect you. There was nothing else he could have done but hide you, Max.”   
  
“Protect me from--?” he started to say but then he looked straight ahead into the hallway and he swore he saw someone standing on the stairs, just their head visible, like before. He blinked and shook his head until the image evaporated. He could remember David holding him so protectively and trying to sneak out of the house with him, until they both realized they were already cornered. He remembered most vividly the white clothes that burned in his memory and David kissing him on the forehead before he shut the door on him. But what happened after that? Max couldn’t remember. His head was full of fog.   
  
He didn’t fight Aster as she helped him to his feet and began to lead him out by the hand. She guided him to step over the carnage, but something caught his eye and he couldn’t move past it. “Wait,” he told her, stooping down gingerly to pick it up. The quilt was miraculously intact. Aster waited as he cloaked himself in it and held it shut with one hand, accepting hers only because he genuinely needed to help walking with his stiff limbs. As they got into the hallway, he briefly felt afraid again at the sounds of other people in the house but Aster comforted him. “It’s just the police. They’re here to help.”   


He could see they were labeling things, setting up tape and bagging things in evidence bags on a temporary table. He saw a heavy black baton, cotton samples of blood in baggies, a broken humanoid white mask, a necklace with a charm of a man hanging by the ankles…  
  
His mouth flooded with bitter tasting saliva and he let go of Asters hand to run out the front door, stumbling off the porch so he could vomit into the garden. There wasn’t much in his stomach hours after dinner, but it convulsed anyway to push up what it could. He only stopped dry heaving when Aster reached him and guided him upright to help stop the reflex. “M’sorry,” he mumbled but she hushed him as she pulled him close and rubbed circles on his abdomen to soothe the cramping. His mouth tasted sour and bitter, and every time he swallowed, he felt like it would start over again. “I know just how you feel.” Aster murmured, “But your father was _never_ here, Max. He’s doing this to make you afraid.”  
  
That made sense. And deep down, he did know that was the truth. But it didn't change the fact that his father knew where he lived. _Why? Why me? Why does he want to hurt me so badly, what did I ever do?! If he wishes I was never born, why can't he just be glad I'm gone and leave me alone?!_  
  
“She said she had a message,” he said. Normally he wasn’t okay with Aster being this physical with him, but he was in so much pain and so upset that he was allowing it this once. This was one of the few times that Max didn’t feel like he could handle the situation alone. He didn’t feel smart enough, strong enough or brave enough to get through it. He was just a kid. He had gotten used to finally depending on the grown ups around him, and he felt like he needed Aster more than ever. “Where’s my dog?”   
  
“We can talk about it when we’re at the station.”

  


* * *

  
  
David cracked open his eyes very slowly at a sound he knew very well. The soft thunk of a cane before the footsteps themselves, that announced his grandfather’s presence but he didn’t see him until he shambled into frame and set something on the side table. The semi realistic wolf plushy that was loved until the fur was worn and short, the eyes were scuffed til they had no shine and the tail was sewn back on years ago. He remembered running up to his mother with it at the zoo, so excited after the new exhibit opened; the wolf sanctuary. He had been in love with it from age four until he gave it up at twelve. _ Hey, Trusty. _   
  
“I don’t need that,” he said, his voice quieter and words slurred, despite how clear they sounded in his head.   
  
“It’s tradition. Every time you land your stupid ass in here,” His grandfather groaned quietly as he sat down in the chair. “It keeps you company. Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”   
  
“I was.” And it was true, but every time he got too deep into sleep, he began to relive the night before in flashes of its most intense moments. He could hear Max cursing and pleading before he shut down in tears as he was locked away in the dark. David didn't think he would ever be able to forgive himself for putting Max through that.

He remembered distinctly the bones in his wrist giving out, and the first explosive pain as something hard smashed into his head. David had been utterly certain in that moment, that was how he would go. His skull in fragments, pulverized by a blunt object by a lunatic in a mask, who would step over his bleeding body to accomplish whatever Sunil had sent her to do. Between moments of terror for Max’s sake, he kept thinking _ please, God, I don’t want to die. _

He blinked quickly, tears stinging his eyes and flinched as Granda reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, now, don’t do that. Everything’s turned out alright. Your boy is safe.”  
  
“How do you know?” he gasped out, trying not to let the spasms in his chest get the better of him and send him into a full blown breakdown.   
  
“Your godmother called, he’s resting up now. He hasn’t got a scratch on him. She said you hid him in your old hideout, very smart of you.”

  
  
_ She didn’t find him. _

David cried.

But it was out of relief and finally letting go of trying to be strong anymore. Maybe it was all the pain medication they had dosed him with for his own good, or the concussion, but he couldn’t get his tears under control. He felt like a little kid again as Adaire rubbed his arm and talked to him softly in his gravelly Gaelic, sent back to all the times he was sniffling from getting himself hurt by fighting or playing or running off. “Thank God,” he mumbled, something he didn’t say very often anymore.

  
“God had nothing to do with it, Davey. It was all you.”   
  
That was jarring to hear from a devout man. David got swatted and lectured for taking the Lord’s name in vain growing up, nothing too cruel but enough that it was something he still didn’t do out of conditioning. He twitched his fingers in the cast and regretted it immediately, because the drugs weren’t enough to numb him from his own stupidity. “Can I call Max? Or my friend?” he asked through a tense jaw.   
  
“I’m sorry, poppet, but you cannae do much right now besides sleep. Gotta give your brain time to heal and nae distract it.”   
  
“How long…?”   
  
“You’ll be out of work for at least a week.”   
  
_ A week?! I can’t miss a whole week! There’s the first grade sing and I have to talk to the principal about Max and-- _   
  
David started to sit up in protest but his grandfather held him fast by the shoulder. “You can afford it, the world will go on without ya.”   
  
“No, no, you don’t get it, Max _ needs _ me and I have to talk to Gwen! It won’t make it any worse--”   
  
“When you’re well, you can hop right back into it and if the doctor says you can sooner, then you can.”   
  
“I’m twenty four years old,” David tried his best to sound threatening. “I can discharge myself if I want.”   
  
“Aye, you can. But good luck getting home, because you were brought here in an ambulance and I’m your ride.”   
  
“You’re mean.” _And you also don't know how Uber and Lyft work._   
  
“I’m _ responsible _ . Chin up, Davey, you’ll be home before you know it and the doctor said I could at least read to you for a short bit. Maybe tomorrow, I can see about your boy coming to see you.” Adaire only sounded and acted patient when David didn’t want him to be, but he did produce a novel from his book bag and David stole a glance at the title. It surprised him so much that he let the words slip out loud that he normally would be much more delicate, “That’s one of Grandma’s.”   
  
Adaire didn’t say anything. He just coughed uncomfortably as he thumbed through to the first page past the notes and glossary, and squinted through aging eyes at the words. David knew he must have gone digging through boxes to find it. And knowing that, he didn’t feel much like arguing anymore. Instead, he laid back down properly and offered an open hand until his grandfather noticed.

Once his chair was moved closer to the bed, Adaire accepted it and read in a low, calming voice that once lulled David back to sleep on many stormy nights years ago. Before the fights, before the lies, before everything got complicated and felt like a knee that had never healed right. _ “Down in the valley, there were three farms. The owners of these farms had done well. They were rich men. They were also nasty men. All three of them were about as nasty and mean as any men you could meet. Their names were Farmer Boggis, Farmer Bunce and Farmer Bean…” _ _   
_   
  
David must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up again with was dark outside of the windows and his grandfather was gone. He was sad for a moment, as he noticed he had an extra blanket than before and a change of clothes and a box were left in the now empty chair. The first thing he noticed after that was just how thirsty he was, and then how hungry. He would page the nurse in a moment. If he was going to get better, he had better stay on top of those things.   
  
But he sat up first and struggled to pull the chair closer to look in the box and it delightfully was full to the brim of books. All of them were old but well cared for, the page edges softened by years of being turned over and over again. He loved that paper smell that was unique to libraries and his grandmother’s things. It was the only way he ever had gotten to know her; through her books she had collected her entire life and treasured. Treasure Island, all the Roald Dahl’s, poetry and mythology. He noticed that Fantastic Mr. Fox was sitting on top with a folded card on top of it and it took a minute to get it open with one hand. That cast was going to drive him crazy, but his students would have a riot signing it. He read the note.

  
  
_ It’s a requirement of parenthood to pass good stories to your children. _

_ -Granda _

  
  
His vision clouded until he couldn’t see the stocky yet neat handwriting anymore.   
  
In that moment, David was so grateful he was alive that he forgave Adaire for everything he had ever done wrong. The last bits of bitterness and wounded anger melted away from his heart and he finally let them go for good. David remembered the better times. 

He remembered his grandfather dropping him off at Camp Campbell and promising him he would find a way to be happy again, months after they both said goodbye to Willow. Months of crying until he made himself sick, of Adaire choking down his own grief because now he had outlived the love of his life and his only child, so he could raise _ her _only child with a semblance of hope. David had been convinced from the start that he had been sent to camp so his grandfather didn’t have to deal with a rotten, whiny kid like him that only reminded him of his dead daughter. 

But he always got letters and the occasional phone call that rivaled his theory. And David did find happiness, with friends and sanctuary in nature away from the town and buildings he associated with a life he thought was over now that Mom was gone. He remembered Adaire smiling at him so proudly, his first smile in months, as he showed him the whole book David had put together of leaves and plants he had preserved between the pages, labeled with their scientific names and useful properties or hazards. And he remembered him still smiling, tears in his eyes as he said, _ “Better sign you up for lessons, then.” _ when he announced he wanted to learn the guitar like his counselors. _ Like Mom. _   
  
If David had to count them, there were more hugs and more smiles than there were screaming matches and slammed doors. Because in the end, even if Adaire didn’t get it all right, it all came from love and the right place and that was what David was trying to do now. 

  
It was all he could do, and he laid back down, hugging _ Fantastic Mr. Fox _ and the note to his chest, praying it would be enough.


	5. Final Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since Gwen returned to her life outside of Camp Campbell, she's been making a monthly trip back to Portland to check on Max's mother and exchanging letters with her. This chapter is a little longer, and is a collection of these visits. Warning, this chapter will also have very dark and sensitive themes, including abortion. Pro-choice author. Don't like, don't read. See you all in part 3!

** _August_ ** _ . _

_   
_ “This is Winifred. David said this is what they’re like every night,” Gwen said, showing her the picture of Max curled up with his cheek squished against the back of the dog’s head, his fingers against her soft floppy ear, sound asleep. Rishima always teared up when she saw her son. “He looks so  _ different _ . B-but in a good way!”   
  
“It’s probably the weight gain. And the sleep.”   
  
“And his mothers,” she said softly, picking at the skin around her nails, the awful same habit her child had. “One of them is a police officer,  _ haan _ ?”   
  
“Chief of police. A goddamn badass...Nobody is going to be able to hurt him, Rish, he’s as safe as he can ever be.”   
  
Rishima nodded slowly, her head gradually bowed lower and lower as she did until her hair hid her face and her shoulders began to quake. Gwen put her phone in her pocket, sighing internally. She was used to it at this point. Rishima was as brittle as a porcelain doll, and she was held together by glue and tape from years of rough treatment. “I’m so horrible, Gwen,” she wept.   
  
“Why do you say that now?” Gwen didn’t disagree, but she wanted to hear her out.   
  
“I--I had a dream last night, that I was holding him again. I could feel him and smell him, and he smiled up at me. I could even see his dimples, I remember them exactly.” She kept wiping her tears away but they just kept coming, every breath a shaky choked gasp, like that of a toddler’s. “But then I woke up and he was gone, and all I wanted was him, Gwen, I just wanted to hug him, I want to see him smiling again in front of me. I can’t sleep without his pillow, if I sleep at all. How  _ selfish  _ is it of me to miss him now? He was the only good part of my life and now he’s gone, and I have nothing. I’d give anything to hold him one more time, just to say a real goodbye.”

  
Gwen wasn’t sure how to interpret that. She claimed herself that she was unable to love Max properly, a child she was forced against her will to have by her abuser. But she started to doubt if that was really true. Maybe Rishima believed that, but deep down she did care about him. She was so tormented over his well being, and clearly missed Max every minute. She didn’t seem at all relieved or glad he was away from  _ her _ , just that he was away from his father. 

“Okay, bring it in. Stop that,” Gwen sighed, pulled Rishima by her shoulders and wrapping her arms around her trembling, baby-bird reminiscent form. Max’s mother slowly hugged her back, her fingers gripping the fabric of her sweater as she sniffled and whimpered against her shoulder.  _ “You’re my only friend in this whole world, Gwen.” _ _   
  
_

“You can do better,” she joked dryly, as she let her go and handed her a tissue. She always took them with her to these meet ups now. She saw a tiny smile form on Rishima’s face, who shook her head in disagreement, as she dabbed her eyes with it. “I hope you know that you did the right thing for him, Rish. This all happened because of what you did.”   
  
“It doesn’t make up for the rest, though…”   
  
“But it is a start.” Gwen insisted, and Rishima finally looked her in the eyes, her smile widening enough to show Max inherited his dimples from her, too. “Are you going to be okay tonight? You know you can--”   
  
“Please don’t ask me, Gwen. You know what I’ll say.”

  
“Don’t go back. You can couch hop with me…”   
  
She made the offer every time. And like always, Rishima refused, and they parted ways until the next time. Gwen never knew if Rishima would be there.   
  
  
  


** _September._ **

  
Gwen waited at their usual corner, but a half hour had gone by when Rishima was supposed to show up. All it took was one bad turn for a monster like Sunil to go too far, and if Rishima was even a minute behind schedule, Gwen began to fear the worst for her. But then the bell tingled jovially and she saw a familiar mop of black curls and cute short unruly bangs walk in on unsteady feet.   
  
_ Oh no _ , Gwen thought. Rishima looked sloppy, like she had barely been able to get her cardigan on and she kept bumping into people.  _ Is she high? _ _   
_   
Gwen watched as Rishima finally managed to get to their table and sat down heavily, wincing in pain as she did. Every clink of china, every scratch of a chair leg, it made her flinch and she shakily set her head in her hands. “God damn, Rish,” Gwen said, genuinely horrified. “You look like death.” 

All the color had drained from her face and she looked absolutely  _ ashen _ , her eyes sunken and dull, trembling from head to toe, and sweating feverishly. Gwen had never seen her so strung out, and that was saying something. “I’m alright,” she whispered, shielding her eyes from the overhead lights. “How-- how have you been?”   
  
“I’m fine, same old same old,” Gwen said suspiciously. When she got the chance, she ordered some tea for Rishima, the lemon ginger turmeric stuff she liked. When it was set down in front of her, Rishima immediately made a face and began to push it away. “Oh, no…”   
  
“What’s wrong with you?”   
  
She stared Rishima down for a while, who shuddered and hugged her sweater closer around herself, wilting under the scrutiny. But like clockwork, she gave in and whispered, “He took them away.”   
  
“Who did? Sunil?” Rishima nodded and Gwen looked over her for a few more moments, the realization clicking. Rishima wasn’t high, she was in withdrawal. “Jesus. You better drink that.”   
  
“I can’t keep anything down, Gwen.”   
  
“Try.” she ordered firmly, and Rishima looked at her miserably but obeyed. She wasn’t great under pressure, and caved so easily. Gwen felt a little bad taking advantage of her meekness, but it was for her own good. As she sipped the tea, Gwen moved her chair to sit closer to her. She knew Rishima to be a heavy user, and quitting suddenly could be dangerous. “How long since you had your last?”   
  
“Two days,” she said weakly.    
  
“And he just cut you off?”   
  
“Yes...D-do you have pictures of Maxie?”   
  
Gwen faltered, not ready for the subject change but that was the whole reason for these meet ups. Rishima was desperate for updates on her son, and Gwen was hoping each time, something would change. If there was even a chance of reconciliation, that she could shape up and be there for Max, she wanted to find it. But it was mostly pity for Rishima in the end. “Yeah, I do. His hair is getting longer. I can’t wait to see David try to take him to get it cut--” she looked up from her phone to see Rishima had gone dead quiet and was staring down with big eyes and swallowing thickly. 

Gwen knew that look. “Are you gonna…?” And Rishima nodded, pressing a hand over her mouth with an unhappy sound. Gwen jumped up immediately and pulled the smaller woman out of her chair and began forcibly steering her to the bathroom by her shoulders.   
  
They made it to a stall just in time before Rishima lost what little there was in her stomach. Gwen held her hair back for her sympathetically and patted her back with a frustrated sigh. When it was done, she helped her sit down on the floor of the stall and felt her forehead as Rishima breathed shallowly. “You’re burning up,” Gwen determined. “And you’re seriously dehydrated, you’re not going to make it if you can’t even keep water down.”   
  
Rishima shook her head feebly and Gwen could see now how truly weakened she was, how severe her condition was becoming. “Let me take you to the hospital,” she offered as gently as possible and Rishima closed her eyes in despair. “No, no, he’ll find out, he’ll be angry and he’ll  _ punish  _ me…”   
  
Gwen hated Sunil more than ever. For hurting Max, for hurting his wife, for targeting people who couldn’t fight back. He disgusted her. And she was done being a bystander. “Not giving you a choice, Rish. This could kill you.”   
  
_ “Then let it!” _ _   
_   
“If you really wanted that, why did you drag your sorry ass here?” Gwen demanded, hauling her up by the arm and forcing her back on her feet. “If you didn’t want me to help, you should’ve stayed away but you didn’t.”   
  
She whined the entire way out until Gwen dropped her unceremoniously in the back seat and started the engine, peeling off towards the nearest hospital. While there, she tried to make small talk. “We’ve gotten pretty good at this pen-pal thing. Have you written any for Max?”   
  
“I--I’m too afraid Sunil will find it if I do.”   
  
“He hasn’t figured out it was you yet?”   
  
“No. He thinks Max has run away.”   
  
“But is he looking for him?”   
  
Rishima didn’t answer, and Gwen asked her more aggressively, “Hey! Don’t pass out on me, Is he looking for him?!”   
  
“Under every stone,” she croaked.   
  
The rest of the way, Gwen was just fighting to keep her awake until they pulled into the E.R and she dragged the pathetic girl through the doors and dumped her into a chair. As she waited next to her, Rishima’s head eventually fell against her shoulder, as she kept squirming and shuddering in pain.  _ Why me? _ Gwen thought, as she allowed it. She knew deep down that if it was David, he would still show her compassion regardless of the depth of his distaste for the person. If he could do it, so could she. “Just hang on,” she said, reaching over and squeezing her cold hand. “You want to see your son again, don’t you?”   
  
“Yes,” Rishima’s lip trembled.   
  
“So you have to stay alive. Take a page out of his book and fight.”   
  
And she did, until a nurse finally took her away. Within two hours, she was resting with something to take the edge off and was getting fluids. When asked to visit, Gwen declined but agreed to stay to drive her home when she was released. She waited as Rishima paid in cash for her treatment, looking exhausted but more stable, and Gwen watched as she accepted the prescription for a limited amount of methadone. “How are you going to hide it from him?” she asked her on their way out. “I don’t know,” Rishima answered brokenly. “Gwen, he’s always known about my-- my habit. I don’t understand why he’s doing something about it now.”   
  
“Huh. You’re right, that is weird...You don’t think he’s suspicious of you? That this is something to try to make you confess?”   
  
“You think a lot like him.”   
  
A chill ran down Gwen’s spine and she shoved Rishima into the passenger seat, then drove her to the pharmacy without another word. Like before, Rishima refused to stay with her and she dropped her off at a random location at her request, where Rishima proceeded to walk off alone to sneak her way home. Gwen just hoped the medication would be enough for her to survive a bit longer, as she headed back to her hotel. 

  
  


_ **October.** _

  
Gwen cracked open one eye miserably as her phone lit up in the darkness, the ring tone singing loudly. She slapped her hand down on it and glared at the unknown number, until her groggy 3 a.m brain recognized it as a Portland area code and then she was wide awake.   
  
“Rishima?” she asked, as she answered it and was answered with shaky, frightened breaths.    
  
“ _ Yes _ ,” answered a meek voice she knew.    
  
“Holy shit. You got a phone?” Gwen was wide awake then.   
_   
_ _ “No, I-I’m using a payphone. Outside the drugstore. Gwen-- Gwen, I need…”  _ she trailed off, and Gwen could hear absolutely hysterical crying on the other end. God, she was getting sick of this woman’s constant blubbering, but her bleeding heart got the better of her. “Rishima, what the fuck? Why are you calling me?”   
  
_ “I took a test.”  _ she managed to choke out, her words barely audible.   
  
That got Gwen to pump the breaks. She chewed her lip nervously before asking, “What kind?”   
  
_ “Two. They both-- they’re both positive.” _   
  
“...Rish?”   
  
_ “I’m pregnant. That’s why he did it. That’s why he made me get clean. Gwen, I can’t do this, I can’t have his baby again, I can’t do it, I’ll die first-- you have to help me. Tell me what to do, please, you’re so smart, please help me, I’m begging you, I don’t want to do this again and you’re the only person who…” _   
  
_ Fuck _ . Gwen immediately felt guilty for being annoyed with her. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, doing her best to be more fully alert. “Take a deep breath, Rishima. I’m gonna help, but you have to slow--”   
_   
_ _ “I don’t want another baby!” _   
  
Gwen remained patient. “I know. You’re not having one. Listen to me, is there a Planned Parenthood nearby you?”   
  
_ “He’s watching me closer, I can’t go anywhere alone for long. I think he’s going to stop letting me out at all. Gwen, I’m so scared. I don’t know if he’ll keep me around after it comes!” _ _   
_ _   
_ “Stop. Panicking. And breathe.”   
  
Gwen coached her by counting along with her inhale and exhale, just like she did with Max so many times, until there was something that resembled control again. In truth, her own heart was beating quickly. What if Rishima’s fear was rational? If she had another kid for Sunil, and he didn’t need her anymore, what would he do? And why would he even  _ want  _ another child? Gwen had enough of trying to be delicate with her. “Can you still send me money for the plane ticket?”   
  
_ “He’s cut me off.” _ _   
_ _   
_ “It’s fine, I can get it. I’m off this weekend, I can be there in a few days. Can you meet me somewhere?”   
  
_ “Th-this weekend? Perhaps...yes. Yes, I can do it. I can get out. On Sunday morning. What are you going to do?” _ _   
_ _   
_ “Just be there, and trust me.”   
  
Rishima hung up on her, and Gwen pulled up her computer and began researching as quickly as possible. If Rishima couldn’t go to a clinic or something herself, Gwen would have to do it on her behalf. It was complicated. Gwen had never had any scares herself, she was on the pill and extra careful, but she had been at the side of many girlfriends through their own troubles. She remembered one of them had been too afraid her family would know if she went to a clinic, so she had ordered medication online, which was  _ shockingly  _ possible and Gwen was horrified. She had asked her,  _ “How the hell do you know they sent you what they said they did?! What if it’s poison?!”  _   
  
But it worked. It had been legit. She was still in touch with that girl, so she tracked down her Discord and sent her a message.   
  
By nine a.m the next day, she had a link to the website and wasted no time paying an arm and a leg for Rishima’s medication, and fired off a text to her dad, asking very nicely to borrow his van for a road trip. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
Gwen paced back and forth behind their usual coffee shop, hugging the paper bag to her chest.  _ Please work. Please work, for fuck’s sake, work! _ She kept praying, until she heard the sound of someone coming and she immediately ducked close to the wall. But relief flooded her body as the dainty figure lowered the top of her shawl from her head, and she looked into those big green eyes. “Rish,” she breathed and opened her arms out to her and Max’s mother ran right into them. “I can’t fucking believe this is happening. How do you feel? Has he hurt you?”   
  
“No,” her voice trembled. “Nothing...nothing too bad...”   
  
She didn’t want to know what Rishima’s definition of bad was. “Does he know?”   
  
Rishima shook her head and Gwen pushed her away and offered the bag to her.  _ At least there’s that. _ “This is misoprostol. I promise it’s going to take care of it, and it’s safe, Rish, it’s going to help you. It’s going to be really shitty, there’ll be bleeding and it’ll hurt but that means it’s working. I got a hotel, you can stay with me while you go through it.” She didn’t know why she was so committed. It was just so difficult to watch this continue. Maybe it was wanting to protect her fellow woman or maybe it was for Max’s sake, trying to save his mother, or maybe she did really care about Rishima.    
  
When she talked to her and looked at her, she saw a broken down cowardly person. But she didn’t see someone who was cruel. Rishima took no pleasure in inflicting the suffering of others, and there were moments where Gwen saw her son’s personality reflected in her, the sharp wit and intelligence and the hidden kindness. She saw the potential of someone who was worthy of being saved, of given a chance of redemption, because in the end, Gwen didn’t believe anyone deserved to go through what she was going through. All her crimes, as terrible as they were, Rishima had paid dearly for them. It was time for her to stop.    
  
“I can’t stay with you,” Rishima whispered, but she took the bag and hugged it close in her arms. “He’ll notice I’m gone.”   
  
“Honestly, Rish? Fuck. Him. If you go back there, he’ll keep doing this to you and I won’t be able to help you again. He’s going to end up killing you, and probably after you’ve had another kid for him to terrorize, it has to end.” Gwen reached out and took her by her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake as Rishima look at her with wide eyes. “Is that what you want? Another Max?”   
  
“No!”   
  
“Do you  _ want  _ him to keep hurting you?!”   
  
Rishima shook her head, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut. Gwen loosened her grip, “Then come with me. You can sleep on my couch and borrow my clothes and we’ll figure it out from there, I don’t care how. But I’ll take care of you, Rishima, and I swear that if Sunil even comes near you or your son again, I’ll bash his fucking head in myself!”   
  
“I’m too short for your clothes,” Rishima sniffled. They stared at each other for a moment, before Rishima snorted and Gwen started to laugh, too. It was so stupid. They devolved into tearful, terrified giggles until they were holding on to each other for support to catch their breaths. And at one point, Gwen started walking and Rishima followed her.    
  
Gwen drove back to her hotel, Rishima fidgeting and fretting the whole way. As they walked through the lobby and headed up the elevator, she kept looking around, like a little canary on the lookout for a hungry cat. But they made it to the room safely and Gwen got a glass of water for her to take the medication. When it was done, they only had to wait. Gwen got her supplies and a change of clothes to make the experience as sanitary as possible, but Rishima was going to spend the night in the bathroom, suffering through the abdominal pain as it started. The whole time, Gwen did her best to soothe her. She put a movie on her laptop.   
  
“What is this?” Rishima asked, her voice strained.   
  
“ _ The Jungle Book _ . It’s Max’s favorite.”   
  
“Oh, I love panthers…” Rishima murmured dizzily, and Gwen couldn’t help but smile at that.    
  
They sat against the wall of the bathtub together, Gwen hugging her as she handed her the heating pad to ease the discomfort. Gwen checked to make sure she wasn’t feverish or pale, but Rishima seemed to be holding up alright. Hours later, the worst of the bleeding seemed to be done, so Gwen got the bed ready and Rishima protested but she just shoved her into it in response. “We’ll share it,” she compromised and sat down with a bounce next to her, and Rishima gingerly got under the covers.    
  
They were both exhausted, but lay awake for a long time until Rishima whispered in the dark, “I can’t.”   
  
Gwen opened her eyes. “Yeah, me neither. Nerves?”   
  
“He knows by now,” she turned over to face Gwen, her eyes glinting in the darkness, bright with fear.   
  
“He won’t find you.” Gwen meant that. “He doesn’t even know I exist, he won’t be able to find us in California. And once we’re there, I’ll call Chief Teabloom and we’ll put that monster behind bars where he can’t hurt you or another kid or woman again.”   
  
“I wish I had your ability to dream, Gwen.”   
  
Gwen hesitated. What would David say? He was perfect for this. “One day, this is just going to be left behind in the past. Maybe you’ll fall in love properly, or you’ll adopt a cute dog and it’ll be all the love you need. Or a cat. A little panther,” Rishima giggled just a bit at that. “Maybe you’ll go back to school. What would you want to be?”   
  
“I always wanted to be a scientist,” Rishima said, her voice uplifting a bit in tone.    
  
“Seriously? What kind?”   
  
“Archaeologist. I wanted to travel the world and rediscover the ruins of the past, and unravel their secrets. Like Lara Croft and Indiana Jones. It seemed so adventurous, and I knew it wouldn’t be like that, but I’d love it anyway.”   
  
“I could see that,” and she could. Gwen smiled in the darkness, trying to picture tiny Rishima in khakis and an Indiana Jones hat.    
  
“I would like a kitty. A big black one, and I could call him Bagheera.”   
  
“Max had the same idea.”   
  
Rishima was quiet for a while, but the blanket rustled and Gwen flinched as she felt her curl up against her side. She wasn’t really uncomfortable with it, just surprised. But Rishima shaking and as she turned over and hugged her to close the gap, she could feel Rishima’s heart beating like hummingbird wings. “I don’t want custody of him back,” she said. “He really is better off with them and I know I would just fail him again. I-I don’t want to ruin his new life. But...I’d like to be in it. I’d like to have him in mine. Do you think that could work? Could he ever forgive me?”   
  
“I don’t see why you can’t hope so. I’ll talk about it with you after you get some rest, you really need it. I’ll be here all night.”   
  
Rishima seemed to relax a little bit and closed her eyes, the strain on her body finally taking its toll. As she nodded off, she murmured weakly, “I think you must be my guardian angel, Gwen.”   
  
Gwen was stunned. When she first met Rishima, she couldn’t picture them coming this far.  _ Someone had to be, _ Gwen thought. She wouldn’t be another person that pitied her cause and did nothing to help.   
  
Gwen never slept that night. She listened to the door, and kept watch over her charge until the dawn. When Rishima woke up the next day, it wasn’t easy but Gwen helped her to the bathroom and started the shower for her while Rishima leaned on her for support. “Get washed up, I’ll get you some clothes.”   
  
“I’m still bleeding…”   
  
“That’s normal. I’ll get us breakfast, you have to eat something.”   
  
While Rishima showered and got changed, Gwen ordered them some room service but also scrolled through her contacts. She didn’t speak to her much, but she had Aster’s number purely for Max or David related emergencies. She was debating calling her when there was a knock on the door that startled her out of her thoughts. She was deep in dark theories about a crazy abusive husband breaking the door down, who was also actively hunting for Max, and she made sure to look through the peephole first. Rishima’s paranoia was contagious.   
  
But it was just the room service, so she tipped the guy and began setting up the table. It was nothing glamorous, but it was better than nothing, as Rishima finally shuffled out of the bathroom. “Here, I put a little honey in it.” Gwen said, passing her a mug of tea and helping Rishima lay down in bed again, propping her up with pillows. Rishima murmured a quiet thank you, and Gwen was glad she was cooperating.    
  
And she stayed cooperative for a while. Rishima had converted all the money she had left to cash, and it was enough to pay for their hotel stay while Rishima recuperated. Then it was a ten hour road trip in her dad’s concert van back to her apartment in Sacramento.   
  


* * *

  
  
“Told ya we’d make it,” Gwen said, dumping her stuff on her arm chair as Rishima shuffled shyly into the main room. “I don’t have a spare bed. Hope you’re okay still sharing until I can get one.”   
  
The apartment was small, dingy but it was the most pleasant place Rishima had lived in a long time. She saw pictures on the stained coffee table of what she guessed to be Gwen’s family and even a frame of four smaller pictures of her own child grinning into the camera next to her. She saw him smile more in still images than she had seen him in his entire life he’d spent in the prison that was Father Sunil’s house. “I don’t mind,” she answered softly, and meant it.    
  
Gwen didn’t make her feel safe, but she did have a way of giving her very tired heart a chance to rest. She leaned down to look closer at the picture of Max running around a woodsy campground with two other children, one in a short sleeved yellow sweater and another with pigtails the color of mint ice cream, as they hurled water balloons at each other. It warmed a long cold and empty place in her chest to see that he had  _ friends  _ for the first time.    
  
But then she noticed something in the corner. Only half of a person in the background, speaking with someone that couldn’t be seen. She saw all white clothes and sandy blonde hair and half of a face that she could  _ swear  _ she recognized. But it was too out of focus to be sure.  _ It can’t be him. He’s been dead for a long time now. _ _   
_ _   
_ “May I sit?” she asked, shifting her attention to the couch. Gwen gave her a quizzical look and said in a tone that made Rishima think she had annoyed her again. “You don’t need my permission, Rish.”   
  
Embarrassed, Rishima just sat down and went silent. 

  
  
Finding a dynamic was awkward. For three days, it was treading on eggshells. She didn’t know what Gwen’s expectations were but at least Gwen had to return to work and wasn’t around much. Rishima did her best to keep the place clean and have a meal ready when her friend got home, but Gwen always told her it wasn’t necessary. And Rishima understood why she said it, but it oddly made her feel better to stick to her normal routine. It was what Sunil would expect.   
  
But over those three days, Gwen helped her write down things to share with the police. Addresses, specific instances, any other witnesses or possible victims. Rishima surprised herself with how much she actually knew, but she was careful to leave out as much about the church as she could. That would only get innocent people hurt. Any cop who stepped near the place was a dead one.

If she knew anything about her husband, he hated a few particular things. Cops. Foxes. All animals, but foxes were the worst.    
  
_ “Why foxes?”  _ she had asked him innocently, in the early weeks of their relationship, before she knew.    
  
_ “Because they’re vermin, my darling. My father hated them, too, after a certain vixen made his life very difficult.” _ _   
_ _   
_ He also hated music, any unnecessary noise, failure and so many other things.    
  
Rishima sat alone as she waited for Gwen to come home, reading over their notes and looking once again at the pictures of her son.  _ Maxie.  _ She really did miss him, in her own way. It wasn’t his fault who his father was, and he didn’t ask to be born. He was just as trapped as she was, and they weren’t allowed to love or comfort each other. It had caused a divide that she felt even then. There was a small part of her that did feel love for him, because she needed to love  _ something  _ in her life or then it would truly be unbearable.    
  
In truth, she just wanted to make amends. 

  
  
_ “Mommy, please don’t. I’ll be quiet. He won’t even know I’m there, please, I don’t like it, the lights gone out and it’s dark when you close the door…” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ She hadn’t had a chance to put a new bulb in the ceiling. Rishima pushed him by his little shoulders to sit on the mattress, not looking at his face. She knew those big eyes would just make her feel worse, and there was nothing she could do about that. Sunil would be home any second, and he was very clear lately that he didn’t want to see Max. If he didn’t seek him out directly during the day, then he had better not even know the child existed or there would be consequences. “Rules, baby.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “No! I hate the rules!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Maxie, they’re good, they keep you safe. Tell Mommy the rules,” she begged him but he stood up and pushed her, shouting. “NO!” and it startled her. For a second, she looked down at him and was shaken by how much he resembled his father in that moment, not in appearance but some other way. Max took it as a chance and tried to run past her to escape the place but Rishima came back to reality and grabbed him by his wrist and pulled him back hard. “Do you want him to hurt you?!” she demanded, taking him by his shoulders and shook him, harder than she meant to. She stopped when he started crying. “No…” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ She let go of him. He didn't know better, and he didn't deserve this. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “You didn’t?” he asked, wiping tears from his cheeks. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “No,” and it was the truth. “Can you tell me the rules now?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Be quiet,” he whimpered. “Don’t touch the door.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Or what?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Or Father hurts us...can’t you stay with me?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Sometimes she could. But tonight she couldn’t. “No,” she whispered, and let him go but he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her skinny frame. “Please stay, Mommy,” he begged, his voice muffled in her dress front.  _ ** _I want to, baby. _ ** _ “Let go,” she told him and tried to push him away but he held tighter to her. How was he so strong?  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ A door slammed upstairs and her heart kicked into a faster pace. “Maxie, you have to let me go.” She pried his arms open roughly but he clung to her hand and made her drag him along as she tried to leave. “Max!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “How long are you going to leave me?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “I don’t know!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “What if you don’t come back?!” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ She heard Sunil call angrily upstairs for her and she knew it was the only time he would before he came looking. And if he had to do that, one of them would pay and she knew it would be Max. Nowadays, it was  _ ** _always _ ** _ Max. Rishima turned to face her son and looked at his pleading eyes before she closed her own and struck him across the cheek with her palm. It stung her hand, so it must have stung him too. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Max let her go. And he was quiet after she left.  _ _   
_ _   
_ He had to know none of it was his fault. Rishima looked at the clock. She had two hours until Gwen was back.   
  
She tugged on her shoes and the coat Gwen had lent her, and stood in front of the door for a full five minutes with her heart pounding. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, whispering to herself. “No one in this state even knows who you are. It’s okay. Be like Max. Be brave.”   
  
Rishima unlocked the door and slipped out to go find her son a birthday present. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“Good morning! How can I help you?” a cheerful young man asked as Gwen meandered her way to the front desk of the police station. She rubbed her eyes and wished hard for a cup of coffee, but this had to get done. She leaned on the counter for support and glanced around the quiet building. The clerk prompted her again, “Ma’am? Do you need help?”   
  
“I need to report a missing person.” she replied and he instantly became more serious as he gathered up the right papers. “Her name is Rishima Purohit. R-I-S…”   
  
They went over the details of her appearance. “And how long since you saw your friend?”   
  
“Two days.”   
  
“Do you have reason to believe she’s in danger?”   
  
“Yes.” Gwen went through the motions of her exhaustion, after staying up two nights looking all over the city for Rishima, trying to find any sign of her or a clue that she had been taken or that she had run away on her own. But it was like she was gone out of thin air. She produced the folder of papers they had gotten ready and handed it to him. “She was running from an abusive husband. We were going to the police with this when she was ready.”   
  
She watched him glance over it and his eyes got very wide.  _ It gets more fucked up, buddy.  _ He told her to wait and she found a seat to rest her eyes until someone came to talk to her.

  
  


* * *

  
  
Gwen remembered thinking that if Rishima had run away or gone back to Sunil for  _ whatever fucking reason _ , she would give her an ass whooping herself. And then she thought that if anything had happened to Rishima, she would never forgive herself for leaving her alone.    
  
It was like a cheesy drama show, like Law And Order, as she stared through glass and they folded back a sheet. She felt a momentary second of relief that it wasn’t her, because it hadn’t looked like her at first. The skin was too pale, her hair was back from her face and her eyes were closed. But a heartbeat passed and Gwen knew. She started nodding until she couldn’t lift her head anymore and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t even remember the police officer escorting her out to get her some water.   
  
She wasn’t fit to drive herself home, so they called her dad to get her. He had stuck around California, probably because he sensed something serious was going on, so it didn’t take him long to get there. Gwen stayed planted in her chair, feeling like she had completely detached from her body and none of this was really happening. But only until her dad walked up to her and said, “There you are, Gwen-drop.”   
  
And then she broke down. She took one look at his gentle face with smile lines and his soothing voice and burst into ugly tears. He set down next to her and hugged her tight as she wept the most bitter tears she had in a long time, because it was so horribly unfair and so sad and  _ evil.  _ “I could’ve helped her, Daddy,” she sobbed. “I could’ve helped her. I should’ve stayed or told someone, I fucked up, I fucked up so bad, she would still be alive if…”   
  
She didn’t say a word as they left and he drove her home. She just kept thinking about how she was going to explain any of this to David and then-- _ oh god,  _ ** _Max_ ** _ .  _

He helped her up the steps to her apartment door, promising to stay with her as long as she wanted. But he stopped talking when they suddenly got to the door.   
  
There was something hanging from the handle. It was like a necklace, and at the end there was a white charm that was carved in astonishing detail. A man hung by the ankles, his body and head wrapped up in a mummy like fashion, but a hole was bored through the head and chest.    
  
Her dad pulled her back from it as he took out his phone, “I’m calling the cops, go back downstairs.”   
  
But Gwen was reading the words spray painted on her door.    
  
**NO ONE CAN BE SAVED BY ANYONE**


End file.
